Join us for a rare and unmissable night of pure slam poetry, grown in the underground spoken word scene of New York City and freshly delivered to you in Amman.
Tahani Salah and Aysha El-Shamayleh met in 2007 in the booming spoken word poetry scenes of New York City and Philadelphia. They were two of very few top ranking Arab slam poets competing (and winning) across collegiate, regional, national and international slams. Although back then, Tahani and Aysha (lovingly) competed against each other -as Tahani was part of the New York Slam Team and Aysha was a member of the Phildelphia Slam team – on Friday, November 28, they’ll be joining forces and sharing the stage at Fann o Shai, where they hope to bring you their very best work.
Seats are limited.
Show starts at 7pm. Doors open at 6:30 – please come early to grab a seat.
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Tahani Salah:
Tahani Salah is a dynamic poet, educator and activist based in Brooklyn New York. She’s a member of the 2007 Nuyorican National Poetry Slam Team. A graduate of Columbia University in both undergraduate and MFA degrees. With a wide variety of work experience from the United Nations to non-profits like Urban Word NYC, Family International Support Team. She is a high school English teacher and Youth Outreach Coordinator with a place on the Urban Word NYC Board of directors.
She is also working on her collection of poetry available this coming spring. Tahani has performed on a number of world famous stages from the Lincoln center in NYC to universities and festivals around the world. She has appeared on the HBO series Def Poetry Jam. As a Muslim Palestinian-American Tahani is committed to bringing light and solutions to problems faced by people from communities and experiences whose voices are silenced.
Aysha El-Shamayleh
Aysha is an award-winning spoken word poet. Born and raised in Amman, Jordan, she moved to Philadelphia in 2006 to pursue her Bachelors degree at the University of Pennsylvania. Her writing career began as a Spoken Word artist after joining top-ranking national collegiate Spoken Word group, The Excelano Project.
Aysha is an International Youth Poetry Slam Finalist (Brave New Voices, 2008), and 2008 US National Collegiate Poetry Slam champion. She was on the cast of Russell Simmons’ documentary about top teen slam poets “Brave New Voices” (aired on HBO in 2009). She was a member of the Philadelphia Youth Slam Team (2008), the Excelano Project (2007-2010), and The UPenn Slam Team (2007-2010).
She is currently based in Amman, Jordan. She was the co-founder of Project Pen, a Middle Eastern creative writing initiative, and is the founder of WritersCell, a Middle Eastern creative writing incubator, however, is currently on a hiatus to finish her first novel.
