Carrying Two Watermelons Under One Arm

What refuge does literature offer us, if any? How can literature strengthen our political imagination and resolve? How can we “carry two watermelons under one arm”?  

Join us for a poetry reading and conversation with Berlin-based writers, facilitated by poet emet ezell. Panelists will read from their work and speak together about the relationship between politics and literature. 

Emet Ezell

Emet Ezell uses poetry to explore questions of place and place-lessness. Winner of the Gloria Anzaldúa Poetry Prize, they are the author of Between Every Bird, Our Bones and the guidebook to Liberation Tarot. Born and raised in Texas, ezell now lives in Berlin, Germany, where they, write, edit, and teach poetry. 

Mariam Rasheed

Born in Alexandria, Mariam Rasheed is an artist and scientist based in Berlin. Through poetry, she echoes the absurdities of life in a politicized, abused body, dedicated to an emancipation project. Her art is characterized by secret codes and ciphers meant to be understood by those, who like her, are in search of a language for the untranslatable.

Najwa Ahmed

Najwa Ahmed is a Palestinian filmmaker and writer whose work weaves together themes of the homeland, memory and displacement attempting to use their art as an anti-colonial instrument. Their films have been shown at many spaces including Sinema Transtopia and Hungry Eyes Festival. Their writings have been published by CFFP, visual Vers and Jeem, amongst other platforms.

Fatim Selina Diaby

Fatim Selina Diaby (she/they) is a poet, writer, and political educator of German-Guinean descent. In their work, Fatim Selina deconstructs centers of power to work towards a feminist decolonial present and future. She challenges binaries while exploring the beauty and pain in the often hidden and violently concealed in-between spaces. She writes about death, belonging, grief, climate justice, and Germanness.