The second night of the She Speaks poetry series is inspired by Bengali Muslim feminist Begum Rokeya and her 1905 story, Sultana’s Dream. Curated by Tanzila Ahmed, the evening brings together artists who dare to imagine a future where they not only survive, but thrive. The night is full of dreams and hopes for a stronger future for women everywhere.
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Poets
Tanzila "Taz" Ahmed
Tanzila “Taz” Ahmed is a political strategist, storyteller, and artist based in Los Angeles. She creates at the intersection of counternarratives and culture-shifting as a South Asian American Muslim 2nd-gen woman. She’s turned out over 500,000 Asian American voters, recorded five years of the award winning Good Muslim Bad Muslim podcast and has a protest sign she designed in the permanent archives of the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Her essays are published in the anthologies, We Are Civic Media, New Moons, Pretty Bitches, Whiter, Good Girls Marry Doctors, Love Inshallah, and in numerous online publications. She’s published poetry collections Emdash and Ellipses (2016) & The Day The Moon Split in Two (2020), is featured in Tia Chucha’s Coiled Serpent (2016). Her latest poetry collection “Grasping At This Planet Just to Believe” was published April 2024 with Writ Large Projects.
Neelanjana Banerjee
Neelanjana Banerjee's writing has appeared widely, in places like Prairie Schooner, The Texas Observer, PANK Magazine, and Harper's Bazaar. She is the Managing Editor of Kaya Press, an independent publishing house dedicated to Asian diasporic literature.
Randa Jarrar
Randa Jarrar is the author of the memoir Love Is An Ex-Country, the novel A Map of Home, and the collection of stories Him, Me, Muhammad Ali. She is a filmmaker and actor who has appeared in independent films and on the A24 TV shows Ramy and #1 Happy Family USA. She is a recipient of a Creative Capital Award, an American Book Award, and others. She lives in Los Angeles.
Saba Waheed
Saba Waheed’s work has appeared in Water~Stone Review (Fiction Prize winner), The Southeast Review (Pushcart-nominated), Bellingham Review, Lunch Ticket, and others. She was a Caldera 2020 Artist-in-Residence. She co-produces the podcast Re:Work and works as the director at the UCLA Labor Center.
D’Lo
D’Lo is an LA-based queer/trans actor, writer, and comic, known for his stand-up, solo theater, plays, films, and poetry. Outside of touring, his work has been published or written about in academic journals and anthologies, with features in The LA Times, The Guardian, NBC, and The Advocate and NPR’s CodeSwitch. Using a decolonial process, he teaches workshops on ‘Writing for Performance’ and ‘Healing through Comedy’, and is the creator of the “Coming Out, Coming Home” writing workshop series that have taken place with South Asian and/or immigrant LGBTQIA+ organizations nationally, which provide a transformative space for workshop participants to write through their personal narratives and share their truths through a public reading. Some acting credits include: TRANSPARENT, SENSE 8, and Mr. ROBOT, QUANTUM LEAP and Billy Eichner's BROS.
Nazia Islam
Nazia Islam (she/her) is an academic librarian and artist with a background in anthropology and religious studies. She has earned her degrees from Syracuse University and Claremont School of Theology. Her research interests include folk religion, religious syncretism, and gender and sexuality. Nazia writes poetry and likes to experiment with various art forms.
Fariha Róisín
Fariha Róisín is a writer, culture worker, and educator. Born in Ontario, Canada, they were raised in Sydney, Australia, and are based in Los Angeles, California. As a Muslim queer Bangladeshi, they are interested in the margins, liminality, otherness, and the mercurial nature of being. Their work has pioneered a refreshing and renewed conversation about wellness, contemporary Islam, degrowth and queer identities and has appeared in Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Vice, Village Voice, and others.
Róisín has published a book of poetry entitled How To Cure A Ghost (Abrams), a journal called Being In Your Body (Abrams), and a novel named Like A Bird (Unnamed Press) which was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by NPR, Globe and Mail, Harper’s Bazaar, a must-read by Buzzfeed News and received a starred review by the Library Journal. Their first work of non-fiction Who Is Wellness For? An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who it Leaves Behind (HarperWave) was released in 2022, and their second book of poetry Survival Takes A Wild Imagination came out Fall of 2023.
They are a member of Writers Against The War on Gaza.
This night will feature art being contributed by Chitra Ganesh.
This program is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
This program is made possible in part by our community partners at Yelp LA.
