Through a personal, historical, and political lens, Mahtem Shiferraw calls us to carve out space for the multitudes of selves we carry when we migrate across boundaries of body, language, and land. With momentum, giving name to everything in her path from the longing that comes with migration to her beloved eucalyptus tree, she blurs physical and temporal borders, paying homage to ancestors past, present, and future. Shiferraw writes unapologetically against erasure, against invisibility, instead creating a space that holds grief lovingly, that can tend to the wounds held and held in the endlessly-traveling body. Brilliant with abundance and texture, her poems dismantle the empire's sterile use of language, both historical and present.
In Nomenclatures of Invisibility, Shiferraw builds a home within her poems, attentively naming those who exist within them out of invisibility and into the radiant light: “We walk / in unison too: our backs bending at once, / our arms breaking, our abdomens / kicked into silence, thighs bleeding. Through / this I ask; am I still lit? And they, again /…what else would you be—”
Join us in celebration of this riveting collection of poems! Shiferraw will be reading from her new book, joined by poet Jessica Abughattas and Anaphora fellows Andres Sanchez and Atina Hartunian. Book signing will follow after the readings.
Enjoy a reception with light refreshments before and after the readings.
Doors open: 6:30 pm. Readings: 7:00 pm
Mahtem Shiferraw is a writer and visual artist from Ethiopia and Eritrea. Her work has been published in various literary magazines, including Callaloo, Prairie Schooner, Poets.org, The 2River View, Luna Luna Magazine, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Numero Cinq, and more. Her short story "The River" received an Honorable Mention at Glimmer Train’s Open Fiction Contest. She is the author of three full-length poetry collections; FUCHSIA (University of Nebraska Press, 2016), which won the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets; YOUR BODY IS WAR (University of Nebraska Press, 2019), and NOMENCLATURES OF INVISIBILITY (BOA Editions Ltd.). She is also the author of the chapbook collection BEHIND WALLS & GLASS (Finishing Line Press, 2015).
Jessica Abughattas grew up in Southern California. She is the author of Strip (University of Arkansas Press, 2020), which was selected by Fady Joudah and Hayan Charara for the 2020 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. A graduate of Antioch University’s MFA program in Los Angeles, she has been awarded a Kundiman fellowship. Her short poetry film “Dinner Party” premiered at Mizna Twin Cities Film Festival in 2021, was a finalist for Palette Poetry’s Brush and Lyre Prize, and appeared at RAWI Fest. From 2020 to 2022, she was the Poet Laureate of Altadena, California, and editor of Altadena Poetry Review. She has taught poetry workshops for Kundiman, Sevilla Writers House, and Northeastern University’s Writing Center. She has read her work at various venues and festivals virtually and throughout Los Angeles. She was previously editor-in-chief at Lunch Ticket, poetry editor at Lunch Ticket, associate editor at Palette Poetry, and a reader at Frontier. She has been an intern, reader, and manuscript editor at Write Bloody Publishing at various times since 2010. She’s writing a second poetry collection in LA.