EventsCommon Ground#928

Publishing-in-Transit: Pamenar Press

Featuring Ghazal Mosadeq, Hamed Jaberha, Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi, Fran Lock, and Cole Swensen

Thursday, October 26, 2023 1 p.m. Eastern / 10 a.m. Pacific

These free events are produced by The Brooklyn Rail.

Pamenar Press Founder and Editor Ghazal Mosadeq, Artistic Director Hamed Jaberha, Managing Editor Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi, and writer Fran Lock join Rail contributor Cole Swensen for a conversation and reading.

In this Talk

Ghazal Mosadeq

Photo by Mehrab Moghadasian

Ghazal Mosadeq is a poet, editor and translator. She is the founder of Pamenar Press, an independent publisher of poetry, translation, hybrid and critical writing. Her own work has been published by gammm Press, Tamaas, Litmus Press, Firmament, and Asymptote among others. She is a member of the editorial advisory board for the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry.

Hamed Jaberha

Hamed Jaberha is an interdisciplinary artist whose works draw upon political, historical, and social themes and often incorporate natural and perishable materials. His works have been featured in over fifty group exhibitions, showcasing in countries across the globe, from Iran to Germany, Japan to Norway. In addition, Jaberah is also engaged in graphic design and art management, serving as project manager and coordinator at Raybon Art Center, an independent institute dedicated to contemporary art in Tehran. His own studio, Studio HEH, he not only produces art projects but also collaborates with indie poetry presses, notably Pamenar Press, known for its multicultural, multilingual experiments.

Khashayar \"Kess\" Mohammadi

$A photo of Khashayar \"Kess\" Mohammadi on The Brooklyn Rail's New Social Environment$

Portrait by Navideh Fahim

Khashayar "Kess" Mohammadi (They/Them) is a queer, Iranian born, Toronto-based Poet, Writer, and Translator. They were shortlisted for the 2021 Austin Clarke poetry prize, 2022’s Arc Poem of the year award, The Malahat Review’s 2023 Open Season awards for poetry, and they are the winner of the 2021 Vallum Poetry Prize. They are the author of four poetry chapbooks and three translated poetry chapbooks. They have released two full-length collections of poetry with Gordon Hill Press. Their full-length collaborative poetry manuscript G is forthcoming with Palimpsest press Fall 2023, and their full-length collection of experimental dream-poems Daffod*ls is forthcoming from Pamenar Press Fall 2023.

https://www.khashayarmohammadi.com/

Fran Lock

Fran Lock is the former Judith E, Wilson Poetry Fellow at Cambridge University (2022-2023), and the author of thirteen poetry collections, most recently ‘a disgusting lie’ (further adventures through the neo-liberal hell mouth), published by Pamenar Press in September 2023. She is member of the New Editorial Advisory Board for the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry, and she edits the Soul Food column for Communist Review. A collection of essays exploring feral subjectivity through the lens of the medieval bestiary is forthcoming from Out-Spoken Press later this year. Fran is an Associate Editor at the arts and culture cooperative, Culture Matters. She lives with Manny, her beloved pit bull and eternal muse.

Cole Swensen

Photo by Anthony Hayward

Cole Swensen is the author of twenty volumes of poetry, most recently And And And (Shearsman Books, 2023), which was long-listed for the Griffin Poetry Prize, and a collection of critical essays, Noise That Stays Noise. A book of hybrid poem-essays, Art in Time, was published by Nightboat in 2021. A former Guggenheim Fellow, she has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the LA Times Book Award and has been awarded the Iowa Poetry Prize, the SF State Poetry Center Book Award, and the National Poetry Series. She has also translated over twenty volumes of poetry, prose, and art criticism from French and won the 2024 ALTA National Translation Award and the 2025 Stephen Mitchell Translation Award.

We’d like to thank The Marion Boulton Kippy Stroud Foundation and Teiger Foundation for making these conversations possible, and for their support of our growing archive 🌈✨