Hafizah Geter: Un-American

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Poet, essayist, and literary agent Hafizah Geter will read from her work and answer questions in a video visit for the FIT community. She will also meet with students in two one-hour class visits. Presentations will be recorded for viewing by those unable to attend.

Hafizah Geter is a Nigerian American poet, writer, and literary agent born in Zaria, Nigeria. Called “one of 2020’s buzziest poets” by Marie Claire, Hafizah is the author of the debut poetry collection Un-American from Wesleyan University Press (September 2020), longlisted for the 2021 PEN Open Book Award, and which received a Starred Review from Publisher’s Weekly. Roxane Gay calls the poems “incisive” and “devastating.” Claudia Rankine calls Un-American a “gorgeous debut” that “troubles and reshapes notions of belonging.”

Hafizah’s poetry and prose have appeared in The New Yorker, Paris Review Daily, Tin House, Boston Review, Longreads, and McSweeney’s Indelible in the Hippocampus, among others. She is a Cave Canem poetry fellow, a VONA/Voices nonfiction fellow, a Bread Loaf 2021 Katherine Bakeless nonfiction fellow, a 2018 92Y Women in Power Fellow, and the recipient of an Amy Award from Poets & Writers. She’s previously worked at Cave Canem, Poets House, and PEN America, and served on the board of VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts. She received her BA in English and economics from Clemson University and an MFA in poetry from Columbia College Chicago.

Hafizah’s full-length nonfiction debut, The Black Period: On Personhood, Race & Origin, about the intersection of queerness, anti-blackness, and living inside the bullseye of a country, is forthcoming from Random House in fall 2022. She lives in Brooklyn, New York and serves on the planning committee for the Brooklyn Book Festival and where she is working on a novel about the collision of coming to America, the American dream, and climate change.

Co-sponsored by the English and Communication Studies Department and the FIT Diversity Council.