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​Nawal Nader-French

Before immigrating to the United States and landing in Colorado almost thirty years ago, Nawal grew up in Accra, Beirut, and lived in Hamburg, London, and Hawaii. Her first book A record of how the mother’s textile became sound will be published by NOEMI Press (March 2023) . Her second manuscript an improvised song is likely to come apart and scatter in infinite directions was a finalist in University of Pittsburgh's 2021 Center for African American Poetry and Poetics Book Prize and the 2021 Autumn House Press Full-Length Poetry Contest judged by Eileen Myles. Her poems appear in RHINO, Fence, Texas Review, Bayou Magazine, Grist Journal, TheElephants.net and elsewhere. Her poem “That I remember” was nominated Sundress Publications' 2017 Best of the Net. Her now disassembled manuscript, A Hemmed Remnant was a finalist in the 2018 Ron Sillerman Prize for African Poets through the University of Nebraska Press and a finalist in the 2018 Brigham Award through Lost Roads. Nawal has an MFA in Creative Writing in Poetry from the Mile-High MFA at Regis University, a BA in English with secondary education from University of Northern Colorado, and an MA in Curriculum and Instruction. In the past, she taught secondary English, authored high school curriculum and graduate professional development courses, was the Instructional Coordinator of eLearning in St. Vrain Valley Schools, and recently an adjunct instructor in Front Range Community College’s Department of English. Nawal is the founding editor-in-chief of Inverted Syntax.

What I enjoy reading:

Some books that have inspired me along the way
DMZ Colony, Don Mee Choi
Monsters I have Been, Kenji C. Liu
borderland apocrypha, Anthony Cody
POSTCOLONIAL LOVE POEM, Natalie Diaz
Deaf Republic, Ilya Kaminsky
Poems & Anti-Poems, Shan Rhodes
Directed by Desire, June Jordan 
This That Susan Howe
Sand Opera, Philip Metres
Scared Text, Eric Baus
Kith, Divya Victor
Museum of False Starts, Chip Livingston
Zong, M. NourbeSe Philip
Injun, Jordan Abel
Citizen, Claudia Rankine
New Organism: Essais, Andrea Rexilius  
Stigmata, Heléne Cixous
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong 
I love artists: new and selected poems, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
Nox, Anne Carson
Hymn for the Black Terrific: Poems, Kiki Petrosino
Curves to the Apple, Rosmarie Waldrop
Conduit, Khadijah Queen
Anodyne,  Khadijah Queen
Whereas, Layli Long Soldier
Dandarians: poems, Lee Ann Roripaugh
Milk, Dorothea Lasky
 Varied writings by  Lorraine Hansberry
           — —                 James Baldwin
Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures, Mary Ruefle
In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country, Etel Adnan
In the Garden of the Bridehouse, J Michael Martinez 
39 Microlectures: In Proximity of Performance, Matthew Goulish 
Poetics of Relation, Édouard Glissant