FAISAL MOHYUDDIN

Faisal is one of the 23 artists whose work is featured in the American Muslim Futures virtual exhibit which opens September 21, 2020. Co-created by Muslim Advocates and the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture, and Design, AMF envisions a truly just America, one free of hate and oppression.

Listen to Faisal's poem "Prayer" featured on the "A Poem for Ritual and Reset" episode of Poetry Unbound, a podcast hosted by poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama and produced by The On Being Project.

Watch Faisal on Ours Poetica, a new program on YouTube that "captures the intimate experience of holding a poem in your hands and listening as it's read by poets, writers, artists, and sometimes unexpected--yet familiar--voices. Brought to you by Complexly, the Poetry Foundation, and poet Paige Lewis. Uploading every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday."

Reading his own poem, "The Faces of the Holy"
Reading "His Ashes Upstream From Where He Was Born" by Hari Alluri

FAISAL MOHYUDDIN is a writer, artist, and educator. He is the author of The Displaced Children of Displaced Children (Eyewear Publishing, 2018), which won the 2017 Sexton Prize in Poetry, and was selected as a 2018 Summer Recommendation of the Poetry Book Society and named a "highly commended" collection of the year by the Forward Arts Foundation; it went on to receive an Honorable Mention in the Association of Asian American Studies 2020 Book Award for Poetry. Faisal is also the author of the chapbook The Riddle of Longing (Backbone Press, 2017), and his work has received Prairie Schooner's Edward Stanley Award, a Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize from the Illinois State Library, and an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award. His work appears in The Forward Book of Poetry 2019, Prairie Schooner, RHINO, the Missouri Review, Poet Lore, Pleiades, wildness, Narrative, Crab Orchard Review, Tinderbox, Chicago Quarterly Review, Atlanta Review, and elsewhere. An alumnus of the U.S. Department of State's Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms program, Faisal is a graduate of Carleton College, Northwestern University, and Columbia College Chicago. An educator adviser and master practitioner for the global-not-for-profit Narrative 4, he teaches English at Highland Park High School in Illinois and at the School of Professional Studies at Northwestern University. He lives in Oak Park, Illinois. (Author photo by Wendy Alas / @wendyalasphotography)

2017 Sexton Prize in Poetry  | Judged by Kimiko Hahn
2018 Summer Recommendation  | Poetry Book Society
"Highly Commended"  |  Forward Arts Foundation
Honorable Mention  |  Association of Asian American Studies,
Book Award for Poetry, 2020

ORDER NOW:
From your local independent bookstore.
In the Chicago area, I recommend:

The Book Stall (Winnetka)
Women and Children First (Andersonville)
City Lit Books (Logan Square)
Bookends & Beginnings (Evanston)
The Book Table (Oak Park)
Volumes Bookcafe (Wicker Park)
Seminary Co-op (Hyde Park)

Or you can order from SPD
(signed copies available upon request)

Read the opening poem
and the story behind it:

"THE OPENING"

(courtesy of the Missouri Review)

"Dua for America" (ink on paper, 2020) by Faisal Mohyuddin