1455’s Author Series continues virtually with Danielle Badra, who will read from Like We Still Speak.
Conversation and memory are at the heart of Danielle Badra’s Like We Still Speak, winner of the 2021 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. In her elegiac and formally inventive debut, Badra carries on talking with the sister and father she has lost, often setting her words alongside theirs and others’ in polyphonic poems that can be read in multiple directions. Badra invites the reader to engage in this communal space where she investigates inheritance, witnessing, intimacy, and survival.
“This is a deeply spiritual book, all the more so because of its clarity and humility. Yet, we cannot walk away from the addictive command that so many of these poems ask us to follow: to read them along plural paths whose order changes while their immeasurable spirit remains unbound. Each poem is a singular vessel—of narratives, embodiments that correspond with memories, memories that recollect passion. . . . Like We Still Speak is a sanctum. Inside it, we are enthralled by beauty, consoled by light, sustained by making.”
—Fady Joudah and Hayan Charara, from the Preface
Purchase Like We Still Speak
1455 is thrilled to partner with The Potter’s House bookshop.
Event Details
April 14 | 7:00 PM | FREE EVENT
1455’s Founding Director Sean Murphy will speak with Danielle about this collection, and the contemporary poetry (and publishing) landscape. Attendees are encouraged to submit questions prior to or during the conversation. Submit your questions ahead of time by emailing info @1455litarts.org.
1455’s Author Series events are free, but you can make a donation to support us in offering accessible programing.
Tune into this event on Facebook at the event time to watch the live stream!
About Danielle Badra
Danielle Badra is a queer Arab-American poet. She was raised in Michigan and currently resides in Virginia. Her debut poetry collection, Like We Still Speak, was selected by Fady Joudah and Hayan Charara as the winner of the 2021 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize and is published through the University of Arkansas Press. Her poems have appeared in Guesthouse, Cincinnati Review, Mizna, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Split This Rock, Duende, and elsewhere.
