Poets and Performers on Kahlil Gibran

Watch an evening of readings and performances drawing inspiration from the exhibition A Greater Beauty: The Drawings of Kahlil Gibran. The event was organized by poet, translator, and literary scholar Mona Kareem.

The evening began with a brief overview of the exhibition by curator Claire Gilman. Palestinian actor Adam Bakri followed with a reading of Gibran's work. After Bakri, poet Mona Kareem and queer Palestinian-American performance artist and writer Fargo Nissim Tbakhi read from their latest work. Syrian-American rapper, spoken word poet, and theatrical storyteller Omar Offendum closed the night with a few poems and musical performances.

Adam Bakri

Adam Bakri, a celebrated Palestinian actor, rose to prominence with his compelling performance in the film Omar. Showcasing his unique and versatile acting style, he has taken on a variety of roles in international cinema, solidifying his status in the industry.

At present, Adam features in the Hulu series Accused. He also shared the screen with Keira Knightley in the film Official Secrets, which is now available for streaming on Netflix.
Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran was born Jubrān Khalīl Jubrān in Ottoman-ruled Bsharri in 1883 to a Maronite Christian family. In 1895, Gibran’s mother moved him, his half-brother, and two younger sisters to Boston, where she worked as a pack peddler, leaving Gibran’s father in Lebanon. Displaying an aptitude for the arts at an early age, Kahlil Gibran was supported in his endeavors by key mentors throughout his life. As a teenager, Gibran met photographer, publisher, and philanthropist Fred Holland Day and poet Josephine Preston Peabody, both of whom provided Gibran with his entrance into Boston’s creative community. Day hosted the first solo exhibition of Gibran’s drawings in 1904 in his Boston photo studio shortly after Gibran returned from Beirut, where he attended college. At that event, Gibran met Mary Haskell, who would become a lifelong friend (there is speculation that the two were also romantically involved) and benefactor to Gibran, paying for him to attend the Academie Julian art school in Paris from 1908 to 1910. While in Paris, Gibran became involved with Syrian political dissidents, whose activities he continued to support upon his return to the United States. Gibran’s artwork was shown in 1914 at Montross Gallery and in 1917 at the galleries of M. Knoedler & Co, both in New York. In 1923, Gibran published his best-known written work The Prophet, an anthology of poems that captured the attention of the world and eventually made Gibran the best-selling American poet of the twentieth century. On April 10, 1931, at the age of forty-eight, Gibran died of liver disease in his home on West 10th Street in New York City. He was buried in Bsharri on the grounds of what is now the Gibran Museum.
Claire Gilman
Mona Kareem

Mona Kareem is the author of three poetry collections. Her poetry has been translated into nine languages, and appeared (in English) in: POETRY, Poetry Northwest, Michigan Quarterly, Poetry London and Modern Poetry in Translation, among others. She is a recipient of a 2021 literary grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Kareem holds a PhD in Comparative Literature and works as an assistant professor of Middle East Studies at Washington University St. Louis. Her translations include Ashraf Fayadh’s Instructions Within (nominated for a BTBA award), Ra’ad Abdulqadir’s Except for this Unseen Thread, and Octavia Butler’s Kindred.
Omar Offendum

Omar Offendum is an award-winning NY-based rapper and spoken word artist with roots in Damascus, Syria. He will be performing a special poetic tribute to Khalil Gibran, weaving a collection of Gibran's poems and short stories together with poignant excerpts from his own poetic and musical repertoire. Omar's critically-acclaimed theatrical concert entitled "Little Syria" is largely influenced by the work of Khalil Gibran and other writers of Al-Rabita Al-Qalamiya (The Pen League, established in 1915 as the very first Arab-American artistic collective), which he will be performing alongside Oud virtuoso Ronnie Malley and beatmaker Thanks Joey at Joe's Pub on July 15 & 16.
Fargo Nissim Tbakhi

Fargo Nissim Tbakhi is a queer Palestinian-American performance artist and writer. He is the winner of the Ghassan Kanafani Resistance Arts Prize, a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, and a Taurus. He has received fellowships from Rhizome DC, VisArts, Desert Nights Rising Stars, Halcyon Arts Lab, Mosaic Theater, and RAWI. His writing appears in Foglifter, Mizna, Peach Mag, Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, the Shallow Ends, Prolit, and select bags of Nomadic Grounds Coffee. His performance work has been programmed at OUTsider Fest, INTER-SECTION Solo Fest, the Rachel Corrie Foundation’s Shuruq Festival, the Alwun House Monster’s Ball, Mosaic Theater, and has been supported by the Arizona Commission on the Arts.