The events will be a unique collaboration between three outstanding guest artists:

 internationally-known writer and editor Saadi Simawe, who will read from the anthology he edited, “Iraqi Poetry Today” (Zephyr Press, 2003);

virtuoso oud (Middle Eastern lute) player and composer Rahim AlHaj, who will provide musical interpretations to the poems;

and Ellen Dore Watson, a widely-published poet and translator who provided many of the translations in the anthology, and who will read the poems in English.

The El Paso event takes place Friday, Aug. 31 at 7 p.m. at El Paso Community College's Little Temple, 906 El Paso Street, at the Rio Grande Campus.

The Las Cruces event takes place on Saturday, Sept. 1 at 7:30 p.m. at the Alma d’Arte auditorium (formerly the Court Youth Center). Both events are free and open to the public, though donations will be welcomed.

The evenings are sponsored by Zephyr Press as part of its “World in Poetry” series, which brings international poets and literary translators to the region for readings and workshops. This year’s events are funded, in part, by the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry and the New Mexico Humanities Council. The El Paso event is also co-sponsored by by PaPaGaYo: EPCC's Community Literary Center.

Mr. Simawe and Mr. AlHaj have not yet met, but they enthusiastically embraced the idea of working together on an evening of poetry and music from their country. Both were imprisoned and tortured for political activities in Iraq during the reign of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Simawe now lives in Iowa, and Mr. AlHaj lives in Albuquerque. Ms. Watson has worked closely with Mr. Simawe on rendering the poems into English, and she and Mr. Simawe have read from the anthology together in cities across the United States.

“When Mr. Simawe put together the anthology, he wanted it be a true cross-section of Iraqi culture,” said Leora Zeitlin, co-publisher of Zephyr Press, and founder of the “World in Poetry” series. “Arabic, Muslim, Chaldean (Christian), Jewish, secular, men and women poets are all included, and an entire section is devoted to Kurdish poetry. The volume is a kind of meeting place where people who otherwise might not sit down together can here speak through the pages of the book,” she said. The poems were written over the last quarter century, and, since the book was published in 2003, are not in response to the current war there.

“Although I lost faith in politics long ago,” writes editor Mr. Simawe in his introduction to the volume, “I still believe in the power of the word.” He notes that “translating Iraqi poetry and publishing it in English had become for me a desperate effort to save what remains of Iraqi humanity and culture in the face of a brutal dictatorship and war.”

Rahim Al-haj is a renowned virtuoso oud player and composer who has performed all over the world. Born in Baghdad, he graduated with a degree in composition from the Institute of Music in 1990, and also holds a degree in Arabic Literature from Mustunsariya University in Baghdad. He notes that it is traditional to include music in an Iraqi poetry event, and he has performed with Iraqi poets before. Mr. AlHaj has recorded several cds, with more currently in production. He came to the US as a political refugee in 2000 and now lives in Albuquerque, where he won the Albuquerque Arts Alliance Bravo Award in 2003.

Saadi Simawe is Associate Professor of English and Chair of the English Department at Grinnell College in Iowa. In addition to many articles in Arabic and English, he has published a novel in Arabic entitled Al-Khuruj min al-Aumqum and he was an editor of an anthology of Palestinian and Israeli poetry (Modern Poetry in Translation, 1988).

Ellen Dore Watson is the author of three books of poetry, editor of the Massachusetts Review, and the translator of a dozen books from Brazilian Portuguese, including "The Alphabet in the Park," selected poems of Adélia Prado (Wesleyan University Press), for which she was awarded a National Endowment Translation Fellowship. She also directs The Poetry Center at Smith College, in Amherst, MA.

The three will give some workshops and classes at New Mexico State University, University of Texas at El Paso, and at Las Cruces’ Alma d’Arte Charter High School for the Arts while they are in the region.

Internet resources:
www.rahimalhaj.com
www.zephyrpress.org

Reviews of Iraqi Poetry Today:
www.raintaxi.com/online/2004spring/iraqi.shtml
http://international.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=355