Open Door Reading Series: Faisal Mohyuddin, Mojdeh Stoakley, Jameka Williams & Daniela Jaime

Join us for a live virtual reading with Faisal Mohyuddin, Mojdeh Stoakley, Jameka Wiliams, and Daniela Jaime. The Open Door series presents work from new and emerging poets and highlights writing instruction and poetic partnerships. Each event features readings by two Chicagoland writers and two of their current or recent students or writing partners. 

Faisal Mohyuddin is an educator, writer, and visual artist. The author of The Displaced Children of Displaced Children and the chapbook The Riddle of Longing, Mohyuddin is a recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award, Prairie Schooner's Edward Stanley Award, and a Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize. He teaches English at Highland Park High School in suburban Chicago and for the School of Professional Studies at Northwestern University, and he serves as a master practitioner with the global not-for-profit Narrative 4. Learn more at www.faisalmohyuddin.com.

Mojdeh Stoakley is an award-winning writer, performer, activist, and educator who has performed and taught all over the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Turkey. Stoakley is a genderqueer Afro-Persian AfroFuturist, but also identifies as a Cultural Worker and Social Practice Artist pairing art and action as catalysts for social change. They're a board member of Surviving the Mic, founder of Social Practice Labs, founder of Interfaith Poets, director of the 29th National Poetry Slam, and frontwomxn of electronic poetry-punk group »radiant devices«. Follow then  at @themojdeh on instagram and at mojdehstoakley.com

Jameka Williams is a MFA candidate at Northwestern University, hailing from Chester, PA, fifteen miles southeast of Philadelphia. Williams’s poetry has been published in Prelude Magazine, Gigantic Sequins, Powder Keg Magazine, Muzzle Magazine, Yemassee Journal, Tupelo Quarterly, Painted Bride Quarterly, Jet Fuel Review, Shrew Magazine, and Oyez Review. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and she is a Best New Poets 2020 finalist. Her work is also forthcoming in New American Press's New Poetry of the Midwest 2019–2020 anthology. She resides in Chicago, IL.

Daniela Jaime was born and raised on the Southwest Side of Chicago to Mexican immigrants. It was this setting that first introduced her to Spoken Word poetry as social justice work and eventually led her to work with Mojdeh Stoakley while competing in Louder Than A Bomb. Since then, Daniela has been finishing her degree in Journalism from Illinois State University while writing poetry inspired by the many cultural dualities she’s witnessed within her ever evolving environment through social justice based topics.

Poetry Foundation's events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This reading will include live captioning. If you require any other accessibility measures, please contact us by emailing [email protected]. To find out more about Zoom’s own built-in accessibility features, please visit https://zoom.us/accessibility.