Reimagine Virtual Candlelight Vigil with Danusha Laméris and Naomi Shihab Nye

From the organizers:

Let’s honor our loved ones, hold space for grief, and reflect on the possibilities of transformation with poets Danusha Laméris and Naomi Shihab Nye.

Reimagine has been hosting candlelight vigils since March 2020, the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to break down taboos and hold space for all that we’ve lost. This gathering features Danusha Laméris and Naomi Shihab Nye, two celebrated poets with new books to share and discuss. Our other featured guest is Marne Lucas: end-of-life doula, artist, and Reimagine community collaborator.

Danusha Laméris is a poet and essayist. Her first book, The Moons of August (2014), was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press poetry prize and was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Book Award. Some of her work has been published in: The Best American Poetry, POETRY Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, The American Poetry Review, The Gettysburg Review, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, and Orion. She was the 2020 recipient of the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award and her second book, Bonfire Opera (University of Pittsburgh Press, Pitt Poetry Series), was a finalist for the Paterson Award, and the winner of the 2021 Northern California Book Award in Poetry. As the 2018-2020 Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, California, Laméris co-founded The Hive Poetry Collective; a radio show, podcast, and event hub. She is on the faculty of Pacific University’s Low-Residency MFA program and teaches The Path of Poetry workshops online. Her third book is Blade by Blade (Copper Canyon Press, September 2024).

Palestinian-American writer, editor and educator Naomi Shihab Nye grew up in St. Louis, Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas, where she graduated from Trinity University and continues to live.  She has been Young People’s Poet Laureate for the U.S. (Poetry Foundation), poetry editor for the New York Times magazine, and The Texas Observer, and a visiting writer in hundreds of schools and communities all over the world. Her books include Everything Comes Next, The Tiny Journalist, Voices in the Air, Sitti’s Secrets, Habibi, This Same Sky, and The Tree is Older than You Are: Poems & Paintings from Mexico. Her volume 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, was a finalist for the National Book Award. The Turtle of Oman and The Turtle of Michigan have both been part of the Little Read program, North Carolina. She has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from The Texas Institute of Letters, the Arab American National Museum, and the National Book Critics Circle. Her newest book is Grace Notes: Poems about Families (Harper Collins, May 2024)

Marne Lucas (she/her/they) is a queer, multidisciplinary artist, end of life doula (EOLD), and Reimagine community collaborator working at the intersection of art, science, and health, using conceptual overlaps: life’s energy, the body, mortality, and in social practice investigations. Lucas’ long-term projects are informed by events and emotions of the community around her, and are inspired by the doula and palliative care movements. An infrared thermal video pioneer, Lucas uses heat-sensitive imaging technology to illuminate the magic and fragility of human life cycles. The Bardo Project explores creativity as a form of spiritual and somatic care in collaborations with terminally ill artists nationwide to establish their legacy. Lucas received EOLD training at INELDA under Henry Fersko Weiss, a role that supports the dying and their families. Marne has collaborated with artists, choreographers, dancers, musicians, activist groups, sex workers, health care and LGBTQIA non-profits, and the public at large. Lucas received Regional Arts & Culture Council project grants (2024, 2013, 2008), UMEZ Creative Engagement grants (2018, 2021) administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and an Oregon Arts Commission public art commission (2009). Lucas was formerly a harm-reduction activist for Danzine, and advisory board member to OUTsider, an LGBTQIA multi-arts festival (Austin, TX.) 

About Reimagine: Reimagine is a nonprofit organization catalyzing a uniquely powerful community–people of different backgrounds, ages, races, and faiths (and no faith) coming together in the hopes of healing ourselves and the world. We specifically support each other in facing adversity, loss, and mortality and – at our own pace – actively channeling life’s biggest challenges into meaningful action and growth.

For more information and to RSVP, visit: https://letsreimagine.org/76768/reimagine-virtual-candlelight-vigil-with-danusha-lameris-and-naomi-shihab-nye