Arab American Heritage Month: Maya Salameh presents Mermaid Theory

Poet Maya Salameh presents a reading and book talk from Mermaid Theory, a poetry collection that weaves together memory, ecology, and myth to explore Arab womanhood, diaspora, and survival in times of environmental and political change. Drawing on the figure of the mermaid, a myth with roots in the Mediterranean, Salameh’s poems imagine bodies that live between land and sea, human and nonhuman, legible and monstrous. The work considers how ecological transformation, displacement, and inherited histories shape intimacy, identity, and care. The event features a reading followed by a moderated conversation and audience Q&A, offering space to reflect on storytelling, environmental change, and the role of poetry in helping us reckon with loss and imagine alternative futures.