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George Abraham · portrait
SPEAKEASY / POETS / GEORGE ABRAHAM
George Abraham
CHICAGO
Book George
BIO · LONG

George Abraham (they/he/هو) is a Palestinian American poet, performance artist, and writer from Jacksonville, FL. They are the author of When the Arab Apocalypse Comes to America (Haymarket Books, 2026) and Birthright (Button Poetry, 2020), which won the Arab American Book Award and the Big Other Book Award in Poetry , and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Poetry. He is also the author of the chapbooks al youm (The Atlas Review, 2017), and the specimen's apology (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019). He is a board member for the Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI), a recipient of fellowships from The Arab American National Museum, The Boston Foundation , the National Performance Network, and the Map Fund, and more. Their writing has appeared in The Nation , The American Poetry Review, The Baffler, The Paris Review, Mizna, and many other journals and anthologies. A graduate of Northwestern University's Litowitz MFA+MA program in Creative Writing, Abraham has taught at Emerson College and Harvard University. He is currently Executive Editor of the Whiting Award winning journal Mizna. Their collaborations include co-editing a Palestinian poetry anthology with Noor Hindi titled HEAVEN LOOKS LIKE US: Palestinian Poetry (Haymarket Books, May 2025), and a performance art project titled EVE with Fargo Tbakhi. Their work has been translated into Arabic, Farsi, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and more. They currently teach at Amherst College as a Writer-in-Residence.

POETRY: “Searching for a Palestinian After ,” The Nation

POETRY: “Taking Back Jerusalem,” World Literature Today

INTERVIEW: “George Abraham vs. Returning,” The VS Podcast

POETRY: “before he was their ‘great poet’” & “Autobiography Of.” The Baffler

POETRY: “Searching for a Palestinian Necropastoral (Eve),” Poem-a-day

POETRY: "To All The Ghosts I've Loved Before,” The Missouri Review

ESSAY: "Imagining a Free Palestine: an Ekphrasis on a Fragmented Nationalism,” The Paris Review

INTERVIEW: “To Remember, Read, & Return - A Conversation with George Abraham and Omar Sakrm,” The Los Angeles Review of Books

Diasporic and non-western notions of queerness

Historical and ancestral memory; disembodied memory

Mental health and intersections with identity

A workshop on deconstructing the formal/ linguistic borders of their poems, in order to build a new language from the breakage and write against colonial linguistic constructs.

A workshop diving deeper into the poem’s ability to lean into mess as a personal and generative measure; to take control of the camera, force its gaze to our ugliest and most uncomfortable moments, and hold it there.

WHAT A GEORGE READING LOOKS LIKE
Past rooms, fit, the practical details.
Book George
RECENT ROOMS
FIT
Literary series, university lectureships, museum programming.
AVAILABLE
Q3–Q4 2026
TRAVEL
Midwest
TECH RIDER
In-person reading: $2500–$3500…