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Charif Shanahan
@CharifShan
Trace Evidence: poems (, 2023); Assistant Professor of English . Guest Editor . Repped by .
Chicago, ILcharifshanahan.comJoined October 2022

Charif Shanahan’s Tweets

What are your very favorite memoirs of the last twenty or so years? Any “type” of memoir will do, so long as you loved it. Thank you!
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Hi, Poets/Poetry Teachers— what are your very favorite long poems to teach? I’m interested in sectioned poems/linked lyric sequences/book-length poems, but also unsectioned poems that are just very long. (“Long” means whatever it means to you.) Thank you!
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It’s here! The May issue of POETRY — my first as Guest Editor — drops tomorrow & looks beautiful. I hope you’ll spend time w/ this new work by an array of extraordinary poets & translators, & a very special folio on Assotto Saint. It’s an honor to offer the issue to you. Enjoy!
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Hi, friends & strangers— please spread this call for work for my third & final issue of POETRY as guest editor. Lineage & Influence will be the focus, & I can’t wait to read your work. Deadline to submit: 6/15. 💫✍🏽🧚🏽‍♂️
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A gentle and respectful reminder, as we talk about colonialism/French occupation in Morocco, that the Arabization of North Africa was itself a kind of colonial history. I’m rooting for my people, which is to say Africans living beneath layers of empire. That’s all. Carry on.
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Ok, so Trace Evidence () drops one month from today, and I can't wait to share the book with all of you! For now, here are some incredibly generous words about the book from poets I admire very, very much. I can’t tell you what it means to me to have their support💫🧚🏽‍♂️💗
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Dear all! Thank you for all your notes about the May issue of POETRY! I am SO PLEASED that so many of you are taking to it. It’s a true privilege to support our community of poets & translators in this way. Two more issues (Sept & Nov) en route—more details soon
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Not that I imagine there’s a lot I could do, but if you are a poet & there is literally anything I can do to help you on your path, I’m here for it (& poetry), provided I have the resources/capacity. (1/2)
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gatekeeping in publishing is so insidious it trickles down to even (perhaps most of all?) the newest, most insecure authors & it makes me so sad. people are burning their careers & reputations before they even publish. not long ago, i was intro’d to a debut author (former lawyer)
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An annotated copy of Trace Evidence ()—with special notes about the origin/revision of the poems, and my shaping them into a book, along with personal anecdotes—will be gifted to someone who pre-orders the book between now and pub date (3/21). (1/2)
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In my post-college years, as I tried to figure out how to be a poet and live in the world, I carried books of poems with me to and from my corporate job in midtown, to and from parties--really everywhere--and read as many contemporary poets as I could find.
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We are very saddened at the loss of brilliant poet, essayist, scholar, and teacher Saskia Hamilton. (1/2)
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I’ll name just one: Linda Gregg, my second teacher (right after Yusef K—how blessed was I?). Her work is in my bones. If you don’t know her work, start with TOO BRIGHT TO SEE, then go to CHOSEN BY THE LION.
Happy National Poetry Month! The convo I had with David Naimon for Between the Covers dropped this morning, and I hope you’ll give it a listen. I’ve followed David’s podcast for years, and it was an honor to have his attention on my work and the questions of my life. Enjoy! 💫
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Don't miss today's conversation with poet Charif Shanahan, about language & the construction of self, about Arabness & Blackness in North Africa & North America, about the ways histories ripple through our most intimate moments. Audio 📻🔥: tinhouse.com/podcast/charif
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What a joy it was to record the audiobook of TRACE EVIDENCE today!I had so much fun reciting the poems & channeling my former-actor-self, who came back with a vengeance. I love how the audio turned out & feel blessed to get to send out another version of the book into the world!
Yusef Komunyakaa and Linda Gregg were my first two poetry teachers, and the particularities—and wild luck—of that combination still reveal themselves to me more than two decades later.
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I once said among writers at a party, “I just want the poems to reach people,” and one writer scoffed so loudly in distrust I’d have called him out on it if I hadn’t known it meant more about his ambitions than my own. What are your hopes and goals as poets? What keeps you going?
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Hi, friends— I am so excited about these spring readings from Trace Evidence (). Please come out and support if I pass through your city! More dates to come soon in Boston, DC, Portland, Tucson, and elsewhere. With gratitude to everyone who’s reading/talking with me, C
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💫 Tomorrow in LA! Can’t wait 🧚🏽‍♂️
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⚡ Tomorrow!⚡ Join @CharifShan author of Trace Evidence in #LosAngeles @acehotel ! With @mafiasafia / @morganapple / @speakdeadly In partnership with @skylightbooks ! ⚡ Thursday 7pm PT⚡ Details: buff.ly/42Bq88k
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Today, for no reason in particular, I am full of gratitude and hope and am sending love and light to everyone here—especially the ones rolling their eyes at this Tweet. Happy Sunday 🧚🏽‍♂️
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Hi, Chicago! Tonight’s launch is sold out, but if you’re on the waitlist, come through, as spots may open up throughout the day and/or registered folks may no-show. See you there! 🧚🏽‍♂️
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What are your very favorite Italian films? Any era/genre of film. (It’s been years since I lived in Italy/heard Italian regularly—I’ve only been reading it for my translation projects—and I’d like to start hearing it again before returning to Italy for a residency this month.)TY!
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I’m sick as a dog rn but want to say that reading through all these incredible submissions for is buoying my spirit something fierce. What an honor & a joy. Thank you, poets & translators! 🧚🏽‍♂️
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Our Lineage & Influence Call for Work—for my final issue as guest editor of —closes tonight! Please submit your poems/translations before 11pm CT, if you’d like to be considered for this themed issue. Can’t wait to read your work! 💫🧚🏽‍♂️
Done w/ the first part of my tour for Trace Evidence! Thank you in DTLA for the beautiful finale. & my deep thanks to everyone who came out these two months, got a copy of the book, tweeted/DMed about it, & invited me to read from it. Part 2 tour in the fall!🧚🏽‍♂️
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I had a great time talking with about Trace Evidence (), love, oneness, and home… My thanks to for your questions and good words about the book! 🧚🏽‍♂️
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"My story has to be your story on some level, and yours, mine. We are beholden to one another. We are here at the same time." @DianeGotAuthor in conversation with @CharifShan, author of TRACE EVIDENCE (@tin_house) ➡️ therumpus.net/2023/04/03/the
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tfw a brilliant poet you revere says good things about your new book 😍
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I was finally able to read @CharifShan‘s latest book, *Trace Evidence,* last week, & it is just as rich, complex, & beautifully written as everyone is saying. Check his poem on today’s Poetry Daily—& put the book in your summer reading stack! ✨👏🏽💜 poems.com/poem/on-exitin
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The folks who brought me into poems were also the ones who gatekept poetry most strongly & I am committed to making poetry—& a life in it—as accessible as poss to my students & to helping anyone in the “community” that I can. Real talk. (Which you know is true if you know me.)2/2
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I was so honored to talk with about Trace Evidence () — you can read the interview here!
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"That ineffable state of being, we are unable to inhabit, it seems, for more than a few moments, so we return to our lives, to the dishes, to the emails." Read our interview with Charif Shanahan about his new book, Trace Evidence (Tin House, 2023). poets.org/text/enjambmen
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& just to be clear—the gatekeeping happened well before either grad program, before committing my life to poems, & def before a desire to publish them: it happened at the exact time when the gate should’ve been opened to the art, & I maintain it’s a miracle I still found my way.
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It was a true joy to speak with for her podcast this week—give us a listen!
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🚨New episode! What JOY talking w Charif Shanahan about his new book TRACE EVIDENCE; on language of identity & race; complexity of roots; & the power of poetry's link to the ineffable: how else to articulate the self? THANK YOU @CharifShan @OdeAndPsyche podcast.ruthstonehouse.org/podcast/charif
Seven years ago today, I left that hospital in Zurich, where they flew me for surgery after the bus accident in Morocco. Very happy to see this poem from the Dec issue of as the PF #poemoftheday, but mostly just glad to be here at all. Happy New Year, everybody 🧚🏽‍♂️
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And now, a few years later still, I know To ask if this complex of feeling, deep-frozen, Waiting for me, was my actual life— —Charif Shanahan @CharifShan #PoemOfTheDay bit.ly/3Ppzqyz
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Tonight! Honored and excited to read with Rachelle Park and Tameka Cage Conley for the final Soul Sister Review, curated/hosted by . JOIN US at 7pm ET/6pm CT 🧚🏽‍♂️ Register here: bit.ly/3Ou6CGQ
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So so so so honored and hype to be reading at the last Soul Sister Revue w/ @arianathepoet @CharifShan @EugeniaLeigh Rachelle Parker and THEE Tameka Cage Conley (love me some her). This reading gonna be 🔥🔥🔥 join us Friday! bit.ly/3Ou6CGQ
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I don’t have an answer to your question, but I am reminded of a line of Sharon’s from a poem in Stag’s Leap: “I guess that’s how people go on, without / knowing how.”