Poems By Syrian Refugees Featured At Free Reading In Caldwell

CALDWELL, NJ — They’ve never been translated into English before. But on Monday, April 15, the public will get their chance to hear a series of poems written by Syrian refugees at a free reading at Caldwell University.

According to a news release from the school, the public event will feature a reading of poems from “Presence 2019: A Journal of Catholic Poetry.” It will take place at noon at the university’s Werner Hall. (Learn more about this event here)

The poems will be read by Sharif S. Elmusa and Gregory Orfalea, co-editors of “Grape Leaves: A Century of Arab-American Poetry.”

Caldwell University provided the following biographies of each writer.

Sharif S. Elmusa - Elmusa is a Palestinian refugee who he grew up in a refugee camp near Jericho. He is author of a book of poems, “Flawed Landscape”. His poems and essays appeared in numerous print and online magazines, including most recently, “The Massachusetts Review,” “Mizna,” “The Indian Quarterly” (India), Jadaliyya.com and Voxpopulisphere.com. Elmusa taught at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, for many years, and also at Georgetown, Qatar, and Yale. He is Palestinian by birth and American by citizenship. A number of his long essays have appeared in anthologies, including, Seeking Palestine, and Gaza Unsilenced. He has contributed opinion pieces to English-language newspapers in Egypt, including Al-Ahram Weekly and madamasr.com.; Jadaliyya.com; The Washington Post; and the New York Times.

Gregory Orfalea - Orfalea is the author of ten books, the most recent of which is “Journey to the Sun: Junipero Serra’s Dream and the Founding of California” (Scribner, 2014). A children’s version is “Junipero Serra and the California Missions.” His “Angeleno Days” won the Arab American Book Award and was a finalist for the PEN USA Prize. His collection of poetry, “The Capital of Solitude,” won the Ithaca House First Book Prize. The long poem, “Arab and Jew in Alaska,” which originally was published by the Christian Science Monitor, was the first poem by an Arab American to appear in The Norton Introduction to Poetry. Poet Lore has nominated “Poem for the Unspeakable” for the 2019 Pushcart Prize.

For more information about the event, contact Mary Ann Miller, editor of "Presence" and chair of the Caldwell University English Department, at 973-618-3454 or mmiller@caldwell.edu.

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