Entwined Liberations: An Afternoon of Poetry & Film

Please join us on Saturday from 2-4:30pm to welcome local poet Noor Al-Samarrai as we pair her works with a screening of the film 'Spaces of Exception' by Matt Peterson and Malek Rasamny. Enjoy refreshments and community. Please register so we know how much popcorn to provide. See you there!

About 'Spaces of Exception': This documentary film profiles the terrains of the Indian reservation and the Palestinian refugee camp - “spaces of exception” - that have become essential in the struggle for decolonization and indigenous autonomy. Shot between 2014 to 2017, Spaces of Exception observes and juxtaposes the communities and struggles of the American Indian reservation and the Palestinian refugee camp. It visits reservations in Arizona, New Mexico, New York, and South Dakota, as well camps in Lebanon and the West Bank, “places defined by their historical and spiritual resistance” in order to “understand the conditions for life, community, and sovereignty.” While the histories are distinct, dispossession and loss unite these communities in solidarity, and the alternating stories highlight both their unique tragedies and their revolutionary commonalities. Mostly eschewing archival footage, Spaces of Exception showcases the present, in which each day lived is itself an act of resistance.

About Noor Al-Samarrai: 

Noor Al-Samarrai is a deeply committed poet, journalist, and educator with an MFA in creative writing from UM-Ann Arbor. As an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley, she studied with C.S. Giscombe, Robert Hass, and Lyn Hejinian. Noor developed an enduring love of teaching during this time, directing poetry workshops for the campus spoken word community, and further cultivated her journalistic practice. Her undergraduate thesis in political economy focused on the relationship between architecture and identity in mid-twentieth-century Baghdad. This work illuminated a lack of complex, human stories in the literature describing Baghdad and set Noor on the path to fashioning her own archive of Iraqi oral histories about pre-war Baghdad.

Following her graduation from UC Berkeley, Noor pursued the life of an itinerant writer and independent scholar, first in Turkey where she volunteered as an Arabic translator for NGOs serving refugees, freelanced as a journalist, and met many members of her extended family — themselves refugees from Iraq — for the first time. Then, with the support of a Fulbright fellowship, Noor moved to Amman, Jordan and dedicated herself to gathering oral histories for a documentary poetry collection about the emotional cartography of pre-war Baghdad. Noor has also worked as a journalist for Atlas Obscura, toured in 11-piece punk band Sloppy Jane, worked as a podcast producer, and written a book of fieldwork-derived poetry, “EL CERRITO,” published with Inside the Castle Press in 2018.

When

Location

Stafford Meeting Room, 1st floor, 1550 Oak Street | Alameda, CA, Main Library, 94501, View Map