Literary Arts Council poetry reading today

Portland State University’s Literary Arts Council will host four contributing female poets today, who will read selections from a new poetry anthology about living in the Middle East.

The poets will be reading from the new book We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon. Each of the poets represents different ethnicities and cultural heritages, and they are related in their pursuit and advocacy of human rights and social justice.

Elmaza Binader, an Arab-American writer, focuses her writing on issues such as social and geographic displacement, as well the effects that politics have on individual experiences. Alexis De Veaux, who is African-American, advocates for women’s rights. Musician and author Joy Harjo is a member of the Muscogee Tribe and is active in issues related to Native American rights.

Also speaking at the event will be the co-editor of We Begin Here, Kathy Engel, who is both a poet and a communications and strategic planning consultant. Engel has spent the last 25 years working as an organizer and advocate for social justice campaigns and organizations.

De Veaux, an associate professor and chair of the department of women’s studies at the University of Buffalo in New York, advocates the value of women’s studies programs on a university level, and stresses the need to abandon western-mindedness and adopt a more global understanding of women’s issues and experiences. Engel currently works as a freelance consultant for social justice causes, and hosts a weekly web-based radio show called “Out of the Box: Art, Politics, and Fun.”

The event will be held Friday, Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. in the Native American Student and Community Center.