Brooklyn Poets Staff Picks is a virtual, triannual reading series curated by the poets who assist with our space, web, events and office work. Each reading features a lineup of three poets nominated by different staff members as among the most essential new voices today. The series focuses on writers yet to publish a full-length collection of poetry, with an emphasis on those from underrepresented communities. The event includes readings by our three featured poets, who have all been invited to choose their own openers. Our featured poets on July 31 will be Javeria Hasnain, Ajula Van Ness-Otunnu and M. Valdivia with opening readings by Maira Asaad, Alana Craib and Sarita Tánori. All readings are free and open to the public. Closed captions for the event will be available via Zoom. To request additional accommodations or more information, please contact us at [email protected].
Featured Poets
Javeria Hasnain is a Pakistani poet, translator and educator. She is the author of SIN, a poetry chapbook about desire, god and the body. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Poet Lore, Pleiades, Foglifter and Isele Magazine. You can find more about her at javeriahasnain.com.
Ajula Van Ness-Otunnu is a poet, artist and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. They are completing their undergraduate studies at Sarah Lawrence College. Ajula is captivated by traces of absence, portals, fragments and birds. Their work has been published in Love & Squalor and the Sarah Lawrence Literary Review.
M. Valdivia is originally from the High Desert region of Southern California and spent portions of his life in Baltimore, Maryland before relocating to San Diego. He is of Indigenous P’urhépecha, Otomí-Chichimeca and Irish descent. His work centers around liberation, Indigeneity, survivance, reclamation and preservation, addiction, adoption and social milieus and movements.
Opening Poets
Maira Asaad is a Fulbright Scholar from Lahore, Pakistan. She is presently an MFA candidate for poetry at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts.
Alana Craib is a recent graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and an incoming MFA candidate in Fiction at Brown University. They are very excited to be joining Brooklyn Poets for the Staff Picks Reading! You can find their writing in the Sarah Lawrence Literary Review and Love & Squalor.
Sarita Tánori is a writer and educator living in the borderlands of San Diego, CA (Kumeyaay Land) with familial roots in San Luis Río Colorado, Mexico. She is an alumni of the Tin House Writer's Workshop and teaches at San Diego City College. Her work centers around matriarchy, obsessions, decolonization and death(s)