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Samiya Bashir

Goodreads Author

Born

in Amidst Midwestern cornfields, in an Ypsilanti hospital that burned down long ago., The United States

October 27

Website

http://www.samiyabashir.com

Twitter

scryptkeeper

Genre

Poetry, Literature & Fiction, Nonfiction

Member Since

July 2007

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Reach out to connect!
Samiya Bashir is represented by Blue Flower Arts.
blueflowerarts.com || anya@blueflowerarts.com || 619-944-9247

Sometimes Samiya Bashir makes poems of dirt. Sometimes zeros and ones. Sometimes variously rendered text. Sometimes light. Her work has been widely published, performed, installed, printed, screened, experienced, and Oxford comma’d.

Bashir’s most recent book of poetry, Field Theories, wends its way through quantum mechanics, chicken wings and Newports, love and a shoulder’s chill, melding blackbody theory (idealized perfect absorption, as opposed to the whitebody’s idealized reflection) with real live Black bodies in poems that span lyric, narrative, dramatic, and multi-media experience, engaging their containers Reach out to connect!
Samiya Bashir is represented by Blue Flower Arts.
blueflowerarts.com || anya@blueflowerarts.com || 619-944-9247

Sometimes Samiya Bashir makes poems of dirt. Sometimes zeros and ones. Sometimes variously rendered text. Sometimes light. Her work has been widely published, performed, installed, printed, screened, experienced, and Oxford comma’d.

Bashir’s most recent book of poetry, Field Theories, wends its way through quantum mechanics, chicken wings and Newports, love and a shoulder’s chill, melding blackbody theory (idealized perfect absorption, as opposed to the whitebody’s idealized reflection) with real live Black bodies in poems that span lyric, narrative, dramatic, and multi-media experience, engaging their containers while pushing against their constraints.

“Samiya Bashir challenges the vocabulary of science, finding inflections and echoes within that vocabulary of the long and brutal history of race and racially based economic exploitation in the U.S.A. dynamic, shape-shifting machine of perpetual motion,” wrote Marcella Durand for Hyperallergic.

Albert Murray said, “the second law of thermodynamics ain’t nothing but the blues.” Field Theories asks what is the blue of how we treat each other, ourselves, of what this world does to us, of what we do to this shared world in poems which “creat[ing] cognitive openings,” wrote Durand, “for understanding how science, history, life and poetry intersect.”

During the six months leading up to the release of Field Theories, Bashir created six short videopoems in collaboration with video artist Roland Dahwen Wu (Patua Films) and dancer Keyon Gaskin (Physical Education) to remix and reimagine the work through a new medium: sound + image + light.

Norse gods, Ghanaian call and response, and black gospel all contribute to an exploration of the sensual world in Gospel, her second collection which, along with Where the Apple Falls was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Blackademics reviewer Alexis Pauline Gumbs described the collection as a “close look at the infinite places and moments when the human body meets despair, pleasure and transcendence.” Bashir is also editor of Best Black Women’s Erotica II, and co-editor of Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social & Political Black Literature & Art, with Tony Medina and Quraysh Ali Lansana.

Bashir holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, where she served as Poet Laureate, and an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she received two Hopwood Poetry Awards. In October 2017 she was awarded the Regional Arts & Culture Council’s Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature in recognition of individual artistic achievement and excellence to sustain and enhance her creative process. She has been the recipient of numerous other awards, grants, fellowships, and residencies, and is a founding organizer of Fire & Ink, an advocacy organization and writer’s festival for LGBT writers of African descent.

She has collaborated with a number of visual and media artists on projects such as M A P S :: a cartography in progress, with Roland Dahwen Wu, Coronagraphy with Tracy Schlapp, and Bashir has collaborated on a number of multimedia poetry and art projects including M A P S :: a cartography in progress, and Silt, Soot, and Smut, with Alison Saar, both of which travel the country in exhibition and performance. Bashir has most recently collaborated with Saar and Schlapp on Hades D.W.P., a forthcoming limited edition artists’ book.

Formerly a long-time communications professional focused on editorial, arts, and social justice movement building, Bashir now lives in Portland, Oregon, with a magic cat who shares her love of trees and blackbirds, and who occasionally crashes her classes and poetry salons at Reed College. ...more

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Samiya Bashir's Blog

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Samiya Bashir’s books

Average rating: 4.3 · 152 ratings · 17 reviews · 9 distinct works • Similar authors

	Field Theories 4.32 avg rating — 82 ratings — published 2017 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Where the Apple Falls really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 2005	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Best Black Women's Erotica 2 4.16 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 2003 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Gospel: poems 4.43 avg rating — 14 ratings — published 2009	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Best Black Women's Erotica 2: v. 2 3.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2003	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Best Black Women's Erotica 2 (Best Black Women's Erotica Series) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Bettering American Poetry Volume 2 by Amy King (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Jayy Dodd (Editor), Camile Rankine (Editor) 4.82 avg rating — 11 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Queer Codex: Rooted! by Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano (Editor/Contributor), Ana-Maurine Lara, Matt Richardson it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2008	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tuesday; An Art Project, Volume 6, Issue 2 by Jennifer S. Flescher (Editor), Samiya Bashir (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Remica L. Bingham-Risher (Contributor) it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Samiya’s Writing

Pënz (it's pronounced pants) (Arts & Photography)

1 chapters — updated Mar 29, 2010 04:33PM

Description: http://penzitspronouncedpants.blogspot.com/

Toward the Coming Night (Poetry)

1 chapters — updated Mar 29, 2010 04:32PM

Description: To a dear mother of mine, as she kneels to pray.

Scryptkeeper dot Blogspot dot Com (Biographies & Memoirs)

1 chapters — updated Mar 29, 2010 04:32PM

Description: Check out the blog for random tidbits, joy, pain, hilarity, random tidbits, semi-rational response, and occasionally even new works in progress!

Samiya is Currently Reading

Samiya is currently reading

Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story

by Ursula K. Le Guin

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Oct 24, 2019 09:25AM

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Unlimited Memory: How to Use Advanced Learning Strategies to Learn Faster, Remember More and be More Productive (Mental Mastery Book 1)

by Kevin Horsley

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Aug 17, 2019 09:58PM

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The Poetics of Space

by Gaston Bachelard

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Jul 27, 2019 09:37PM

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Samiya’s Recent Updates

Samiya is now friends with J. D. Nelson
Jun 01, 2021 09:59PM · like
Samiya is currently reading Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story by Ursula K. Le Guin	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Oct 24, 2019 09:25AM · 34 likes · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin <iframe id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Samiya is currently reading Unlimited Memory: How to Use Advanced Learning Strategies to Learn Faster, Remember More and be More Productive (Mental Mastery Book 1) by Kevin Horsley	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Aug 17, 2019 09:58PM · 8 likes · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Unlimited Memory by Kevin Horsley. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Unlimited Memory by Kevin Horsley <iframe id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Samiya is currently reading The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jul 27, 2019 09:37PM · 6 likes · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard <iframe id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Samiya is currently reading FATHER-DAUGHTER INCEST by Judith Lewis Herman	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jul 24, 2019 12:54AM · 4 likes · like

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Samiya’s Quotes

“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

tags: fiction, happiness, stories

3370 likes

“Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you.
Seal my ears, I'll go on hearing you.
And without feet I can make my way to you,
without a mouth I can swear your name.

Break off my arms, I'll take hold of you
with my heart as with a hand.
Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat.
And if you consume my brain with fire,
I'll feel you burn in every drop of my blood.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

tags: obsession, poetry

1263 likes