The Asian American Writers’ Workshop, in partnership with Yu & Me Books (NYC’s first Asian American woman-owned bookstore!), presents a reading with former AAWW Fellows and current assistant poetry editor at The Margins, Ayesha Raees. Ayesha will join us to celebrate the publication of her chapbook, Coining a Wishing Tower, a “lyric fable woven in tight, silk strands” (Ruth Awad).

Purchase a copy of Ayesha’s chapbook from Platypus Press here.

Ayesha Raees عائشہ رئیس identifies herself as a hybrid creating hybrid poetry through hybrid forms. Her work strongly revolves around issues of race and identity, G/god and displacement, and mental illness while possessing a strong agency for accessibility, community, and change. She cultivates relationships between the word and the image through theatrical performance, filmic visual imagery, paint, and documentary photography. Raees currently serves as an Assistant Poetry Editor at AAWW’s The Margins and has received fellowships from Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Brooklyn Poets, and Kundiman. Her work has been published in Poets.org, Gulf Coast, Quarterly West, and elsewhere. From Lahore, Pakistan, she currently shifts around Lahore,  New York City, and Miami.