"We Begin Here, Poems for Palestine and Lebanon" reading at Grace Church Thursday, May 10th, at 7 pm.

A reminder of the reading to celebrate the publication of "We Begin Here, Poems for Palestine and Lebanon" edited by Kathy Engel and Kamal Boullata, at Grace Church on Thursday, May 10th, at 7 pm. The reading will feature local poets Sarah Browning, Wade Fletcher, E. Ethelbert Miller, Richard Schaaf, and others. We'll be joined by editor and poet Kathy Engel.

Following the reading, we'll have a moderated discussion with special guests and peacemakers, Hannah Schwarzschild, a labor and employment attorney in Philadelphia and an activist with Jewish Voice for Peace and Nadia Hijab, who is a Senior Fellow at the DC-based office of the Institute for Palestine Studies, and co-director of its Washington, D.C. office.

For more information about the anthology—or to order your copy—go to
www.interlinkbooks.com

Grace Church is located at 1041 Wisconsin Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20007. For public transportation take the blue connector shuttle bus to Wisconsin Avenue and walk south. Two hours of free parking are available (with validation) at Lowe's Cinema Garage, at Wisconsin Avenue and K street.

That morning, from 10-11 am, "We Begin Here" will be featured on WPFW 89.3 FM, on the show "On the Margin" with Josephine Reed. Please tune in! Here are the poets and activists you'll hear from:

Kamal Boullata, co-editor with Kathy Engel of We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon. Painter and writer born in Jerusalem 1942. Living in Paris.

Sarah Browning is founder of DC Poets Against the War whose first book Whiskey in the Garden of Eden is forthcoming from The Word Works in July, 2007.

Alexis De Veaux is a poet, fiction writer, playwright, essayist, and biographer, whose acclaimed biography of Audre Lorde, Warrior Poet (2004) won the Zora Neale Hurston - Richard Wright Foundation Legacy Award. She is associate professor in the department of women's studies at SUNY Buffalo.

Kathy Engel is a poet, teacher, producer, and consultant for social justice and peace organizations. She is theauthot of two collections: Banish the Tentative (1989) and Ruth's Skirts (2007). She serves on the board of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

Martin Espada is author of several collections of poetry, most recently The Republic of Poetry (2006), and professor of English at the University of Massachusettes Amherst, where he teaches creative writing, Latino Poetry, and the work of Pablo Neruda.

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz is an activist writer, and scholar whose most recent book is The Colors of Jews: Racial Politic and Radical Diasporism. She teaches comparative literature at Queens College and with the Bard College Prison Initiative.
E. Ethelbert Miller is the author, most recently, of How We Sleep on the Nights We Don't Make Love. He is chair of the board of the Institute of Policy Studies.

Melissa Tuckey is events coordinator of D.C. Poets Against the War and the organizer of the evening's reading and discussion. Her chapbook, Rope As Witness, has just been released by Pudding House Press.