Brooklyn Poets Book Launch: Ashna Ali

Join us for the launch of poet Ashna Ali's debut collection of poems, The Relativity of Living Well, on Friday, November 1, at 144 Montague St and via Zoom! Doors will open for a wine reception for in-person guests at 6 PM and readings will begin at 7 PM. Eduardo Martínez-Leyva, Theo LeGro and I.S. Jones will open for Ali. Book signing to follow.

Note that by attending this event, you agree to abide by our code of conduct and COVID-19 policy below. All in-person attendees for events are currently required to wear masks (regardless of vaccination status) except readers at a safe distance on stage. We will have masks available. Our full policy can be found at the end of the event description. Brooklyn Poets reserves the right to dismiss from our programs any participant found to be in violation of these policies. Thank you for respecting our community.

Closed captions will be available for the event through the Zoom livestream. For more information and to request additional accommodations, contact us at bkp@brooklynpoets.org.

About The Relativity of Living Well

The Relativity of Living Well by Ashna Ali traces the dynamic between personal and collective struggle and grief. Chronicling the mitigation years of pandemic through an increasingly hostile geopolitical present, Ali’s poems document their journey as they grow increasingly disabled and untethered from the American Dream that brought them to the United States, offering a generous intimacy in the fog of ongoing crisis.

By turns playful and deadly serious, the poems’ emotional and political landscapes interweave to hold space for joy among dissociation, medical struggle, as well as the tensions of complicity and resistance inherent to life as a queer postcolonial subject in America.

About the Author

Ashna Ali is a queer and disabled child of the Bangladeshi diaspora raised in Italy and based in Brooklyn. They are the author of The Relativity of Living Well (Bone Bouquet, 2024) and the Substack PAIN BABY, where they explore the intersections of queer and disability justice, diasporic arts, politics and poetry. Their work has been published or is forthcoming from Indiana Review, Nat. Brut. Zoegloss, the Margins and beyond. They hold a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from CUNY Graduate Center, were recently admitted to Randolph College's MFA program and serve as poetry editor at Epiphany. They live in Kensington, Brooklyn with their hairless feline familiar, Kubo Avatar.

About the Opening Acts

Eduardo Martinez-Leyva was born in El Paso, TX to Mexican immigrants. His work has appeared in Poetry, the Boston Review, Adroit, Best New Poets and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection, Cowboy Park, won the 2024 Felix Pollak Prize for Poetry and is forthcoming from the University of Wisconsin Press this November.

Theo LeGro is a queer Vietnamese-American poet and Kundiman fellow whose work has earned nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and Best New Poets. Their work appears or will appear in Blood Orange Review, Brooklyn Poets, diode, Honey Literary, Plume, the Offing, Raleigh Review and others. They live in Brooklyn with a cat named Vinny.

I.S. Jones is an American / Nigerian poet and editor. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Guernica, Washington Square Review, LA Review of Books, Prairie Schooner, the Rumpus and elsewhere. Since 2019, she has served as an Editor at 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, the longest running anthology for living African poets. Currently, I.S. is a senior editor for Poetry Northwest where she runs her column, The Legacy Suite, a three-part interview documenting the journey of writers publishing their debut poetry collections. Her chapbook Spells of My Name, selected for their Emerging Poets Series, was published with Newfound in 2021. She is the 2024 Artist-In-Resident at Northwestern University with the Black Arts Consortium where she is at work on her debut collection of poems.

emceed by Anthony Thomas Lombardi
Anthony Thomas Lombardi is a poet, educator and former music journalist. He is a Tin House Writers Workshop alumnus and recipient of a scholarship from the Shipman Agency, and he was longlisted for Palette Poetry’s 2020 Emerging Poet Prize. He served as assistant director for Polyphony Lit’s Summer Scholars Program, and his work has been published or will soon appear in wildness, North American Review, Third Coast, Colorado Review and elsewhere. His debut collection, Murmurations, is forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2025. He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his cat Dilla.

COVID-19 Policy

Effective 2024, all event attendees are required to wear masks due to the current prevalence of cases in NYC. Masks will be available at the door.

The current metrics available, including NYC wastewater data and the CDC’s Respiratory Virus Activity Levels, both indicate high levels of COVID and other illnesses. While your personal risk tolerance may vary, the unmitigated spread of COVID and other respiratory illnesses disproportionately affects the most vulnerable in our community—including those who are immunocompromised or don’t have the privilege of paid sick days to heal and recover. We hope you’ll join us in taking the actions we can to make our space welcoming to all and to keep each other safe. Please stay home if you are experiencing symptoms, have a positive COVID test or someone close to you has recently tested positive.

We strongly encourage daytime visitors and workshop attendees to wear masks. Workshop instructors may choose to enforce a more stringent policy at their own discretion. Additionally, workshop participants may be required to wear masks as an accessibility accommodation for other participants.

While we do our best, Brooklyn Poets cannot guarantee zero risk. A risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in all public settings. By entering the building, students, teachers and other attendees accept the risk of exposure and knowingly waive and release Brooklyn Poets from any liability related to COVID-19.

Brooklyn Poets Code of Conduct

Brooklyn Poets will not tolerate any instances of discrimination, harassment or abuse in conjunction with any of our programs. Respect and consideration for others, both within and outside our programs, are core values to be upheld by all participants. Discrimination against and/or harassment of community members on the basis of race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, national origin, religion, age, marital status, veteran status or any other factor is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Program participants are expected to adhere to all federal, state and local laws and regulations. Should a board or staff member, independent contractor, volunteer or program participant be found to violate any aspect of the organization’s code of conduct, Brooklyn Poets reserves the right to dismiss them from the program. Consequences may include, but not be limited to, dismissal from the current activity, suspension, ineligibility for all future activities, and/or loss of payment or fees. If you have any issues to report, please do not hesitate to contact anyone on our Conduct Committee and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Interim Director r kay: kay@brooklynpoets.org
Board Director Emily Blair: emiblair@gmail.com
Board Director Miller Oberman: miller.oberman@gmail.com