Prize-Winning Poet Jess Rizkallah to Give Reading, May 12

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Poet Jess Rizkallah

Award-winning poet Jess Rizkallah will offer a reading of her work at 7 p.m. Sunday, May 12, at Nomads Southtown in Fayetteville. Part of the 'Open Mouth Presents' reading series, the event is free and open to the public.

Rizkallah is a Lebanese-American writer and illustrator. She is a New York University MFA graduate, Kundiman fellow, and founding editor at Pizza Pi Press. Her full-length collection the magic my body becomes was a 2018 finalist for The Believer Poetry Award, and was the inaugural winner of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize awarded by the Radius of Arab American Writers and University of Arkansas Press, which annually awards $1,000 to a first or second book of poetry, in English, by a writer of Arab heritage.

The collection explores family history, love, religion, language, and gender expectations within the Arab American experience. Rizkallah addresses the middle ground of being an Arab American, of being too Arab for America and too American for an ancestral country. The poems illustrate the difficulty in separating those aspects of identity that are come by organically from those which are acquired second-hand.

Copies of the magic my body becomes will be available for signing and purchase at the event.

Rizkallah will also lead an intuitive writing workshop entitled 'Mixed Media Free Write Dreamatorium', a guided free-write using music and poetry as prompts, at 2 p.m. on May 12 at Mount Sequoyah Center. Registration is free, with a $5 suggested donation. For more information or to register, visit www.openmouthreadings.com/programs.

This reading is sponsored by the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies in partnership with the Open Mouth Reading Series, a non-profit community-based poetry series located in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

About the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies: The King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies is an academic and research unit in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas. An interdisciplinary and interdepartmental area studies center that offers diverse cultural, intellectual, and educational opportunities for the University of Arkansas community, the Center promotes research and teaching in interdisciplinary Middle East studies. More information about the King Fahd Center can be found at mest.uark.edu. For ongoing news, follow the Center on Facebook and Twitter.

About the Open Mouth Reading Series: The Open Mouth Reading Series is a community-based poetry series located in Fayetteville, Arkansas founded by poets M. D. Myers and Molly Bess Rector in October of 2015. A federal 501(c)(3) non-profit, Open Mouth works to enrich the Northwest Arkansas community through close contact with poetry and with poets from the larger literary world. Open Mouth hosts readings, workshops, a summer poetry retreat and an annual fall poetry festival. For more information about Open Mouth or to donate, visit www.openmouthreadings.com.