Samiya Bashir | Columbia University (original) (raw)

Samiya Bashir, called a “dynamic, shape-shifting machine of perpetual motion,” by Diego Báez, is a poet, writer, librettist, performer, and multi-media poet whose solo and collaborative work has been widely published, performed, installed, printed, screened, experienced, and Oxford comma’d from Berlin to Düsseldorf, Amsterdam to Accra, Florence to Rome, and across the United States.

Sometimes she makes poems of dirt. Sometimes zeros and ones. Sometimes variously rendered text. Sometimes light. Bashir is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Field Theories, winner of the Oregon Book Award. Her fourth, I Hope This Helps, is forthcoming in 2025. Samiya’s honors include the Rome Prize in Literature, Pushcart Prize, New York Council for the Arts, and Oregon’s Regional Arts & Culture Council fellowships, among numerous other awards, grants, and residencies.

A sought-after editor, Bashir serves as the June Jordan Visiting Scholar at Columbia University. She lives in Harlem, NYC.

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