Beit e’Shai invites you to a night of poetry and conversation on language, literature, living between worlds, and writing futures.
Join us for a cup of tea at Dukkana in Coburg from 6pm on Saturday 29th Aug 2026 as we contemplate the language(s) we inherit, refuse, inhabit, and leave behind.
What does it mean to write between worlds?
To speak in the language of the other?
To live with language-mixing and tongue-twisting?
Co-hosted by Beit e’Shai founder, artist-curator Rasha Tayeh alongside artist-poet Mwaffaq Al-Hajjar, the evening brings together poets, writers, booksellers and publishers to reflect on language(s) of everyday life: the linguistic spaces we occupy, move through, or lose. Languages of indigeneity, migration and settlement. Languages carried by displacement, survival and intimacy. As well as languages shaped by violence, and those sustained by endurance.
Join us in contemplating how literature emerges from lives lived in translation, between homeland and elsewhere, between imposed vocabularies, evolving vernaculars and reclaimed voices.
The evening will include readings and conversations on crossing borders in writing, publishing, and bookselling.
Featuring contributions from;
Poets & Writers:
Asmaa Azaizeh (joining via Zoom) is a London based Palestinian poet, who was born in the Galilee, and has lived until recently in Haifa. She is an author of four poetry collections and a memoir. In 2010, she received the debutant writer award from Al Qattan foundation. Her poetry has been translated into many languages. Most recently her collection “Don’t Believe me if I talk of war” was published in Dutch, Swedish, and French. Her work moves between page and performance, and is known for its direct, clear-cut language and its refusal to look away from violence, while remaining attentive to fragile forms of hope. Asmaa’s audio visual performances have been staged at leading festivals around the world.
Micaela Sahhar is an Australian–Palestinian writer and educator living on unceded Wurundjeri Country. Her essays, poetry and commentary have appeared in Cordite, Meanjin, Overland and Sydney Review of Books, among others. Her first book, Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An encyclopaedia of a Palestinian family (NewSouth Publishing), was the winner of the 2026 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for Nonfiction and the 2026 NSW Literary Award for New Writing; it was shortlisted for the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction (NSW) and the Multicultural NSW Award, and long-listed for the 2026 Stella Prize.
Mubeen Khishany (joining via zoom) is an Iraqi writer and journalist based in Germany. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wasit, obtained in 2020. He is the author of the poetry books Kidnapped from the Hand of Comfort (2022) and Against Hope (2025), and has contributed to several literary anthologies. He received the Al-Rafidain Prize for his first book and the Qarib Press Award in 2023. He co-founded and edited Masqa Poetry Magazine and currently serves as an editor at Shirwmir Magazine. He writes in theatre and cultural journalism. He was a participant in the Writers in Exile program of PEN.
Sara M Saleh (joining via Zoom) is an award winning writer, poet of Palestinian, Egyptian, and Lebanese heritage, who has shared her work on stages from Brooklyn to Bangalore. Her work has been published in English and Arabic across dozens of literary platforms including Haymarket anthologies and the Guardian, and explores the experiences of Arab-Muslim women navigating faith, family, and cultural expectations amid dispossession and displacement. Her published books include; Songs for the Dead and the Living, Ghazal el-Banat and her most recent poetry anthology, Ritual.
Book Sellers & Archives
Abed Hawash (joining via Zoom) from Darkom, a Palestinian mobile bookstore that shares Palestinian literature and links people with the culture and history of Palestine.
Anna Emina from The Great Book Return, a living and growing archive of Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian and First Nations books, artworks and artefacts. Co-founded by Anna Emina and Celine Saoud, TGBR is based in Dukkana, Coburg on unceded Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung land. Anna Emina is an educator, curator and writer based in Naarm. Her practice centres around collaboration and seeks to create accessible opportunities for people of colour to connect with contemporary art in Australia.
Co-host:
Mwaffaq Al-Hajjar is a Syrian poet, artist, and researcher based in Naarm (Melbourne). His practice moves between poetry, prose, and visual art, exploring unhomeness, spatial thought, remembrance, and the politics of the self. He is the author of two poetry collections (Arabic) and the founder of the independent literary Arabic poetry magazine Shirwmir (شعر ومعر). In 2017, he was awarded the Poetry Prize for Refugees in Kuala Lumpur. He has a Master's in Comparative Literature, and his work has been published/ exhibited across Syria, Malaysia, Singapore, Greece, Qatar, Australia, Brazil and China.
Beit e’Shai Director & Co-host:
Rasha Tayeh is a transdisciplinary artist, writer, curator, and herbalist based in Naarm (Melbourne). She is the founding director of Beit e’Shai pop-up teahouse and art space. Curious about public pedagogy, and the idea of a teahouse as a school and a space for knowledge shares, Rasha’s work spans across cultural production and curatorial direction, herbalism, community development, as well as academic research and teaching. This breadth of experience informs her approach as an educator, curator and artist - one rooted in collaboration, care, and the creation of spaces that nurture connection, learning, and transformation.
Event details:
6-8pm AEST
Saturday, 29 August 2026
Location: Dukkana 99-101 Harding Street, Coburg 3058
Arabic Books from Darkom (Haifa) will be available for sale. As well as books in Arabic and English from some of the contributing authors.
Acknowledgements:
This event is held in Naarm on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Eastern Kulin Nation, with contributions from poets and booksellers dialling in via zoom from around the world.
We are proud to work with Tzkrti in Naarm (Melbourne) as our ticketing partner. Tzkrti ticketing platform powers Arab cultural events worldwide, based in Palestine connecting Arabic-speaking event organizers and communities across the Arab world, SWANA, and the diaspora.
For queries contact [email protected]
Artwork Credit: Mwaffaq Al-Hajjar
Beit e’Shai means “House of Tea” in Arabic.Beit e’Shai is a social enterprise founded in December 2017 by artist-curator and herbalist Rasha Tayeh. We are a pop-up teahouse and event space where friends and family gather to celebrate and share the beauty of our origins through herbalism workshops, tea ceremonies, tea parties, as well as music and poetry nights.Originally launched with an apotheca...
Know MoreBeit e’Shai invites you to a night of poetry and conversation on language, literature, living between worlds, and writing futures.
Join us for a cup of tea at Dukkana in Coburg from 6pm on Saturday 29th Aug 2026 as we contemplate the language(s) we inherit, refuse, inhabit, and leave behind.
What does it mean to write between worlds?
To speak in the language of the other?
To live with language-mixing and tongue-twisting?
Co-hosted by Beit e’Shai founder, artist-curator Rasha Tayeh alongside artist-poet Mwaffaq Al-Hajjar, the evening brings together poets, writers, booksellers and publishers to reflect on language(s) of everyday life: the linguistic spaces we occupy, move through, or lose. Languages of indigeneity, migration and settlement. Languages carried by displacement, survival and intimacy. As well as languages shaped by violence, and those sustained by endurance.
Join us in contemplating how literature emerges from lives lived in translation, between homeland and elsewhere, between imposed vocabularies, evolving vernaculars and reclaimed voices.
The evening will include readings and conversations on crossing borders in writing, publishing, and bookselling.
Featuring contributions from;
Poets & Writers:
Asmaa Azaizeh (joining via Zoom) is a London based Palestinian poet, who was born in the Galilee, and has lived until recently in Haifa. She is an author of four poetry collections and a memoir. In 2010, she received the debutant writer award from Al Qattan foundation. Her poetry has been translated into many languages. Most recently her collection “Don’t Believe me if I talk of war” was published in Dutch, Swedish, and French. Her work moves between page and performance, and is known for its direct, clear-cut language and its refusal to look away from violence, while remaining attentive to fragile forms of hope. Asmaa’s audio visual performances have been staged at leading festivals around the world.
Micaela Sahhar is an Australian–Palestinian writer and educator living on unceded Wurundjeri Country. Her essays, poetry and commentary have appeared in Cordite, Meanjin, Overland and Sydney Review of Books, among others. Her first book, Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An encyclopaedia of a Palestinian family (NewSouth Publishing), was the winner of the 2026 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for Nonfiction and the 2026 NSW Literary Award for New Writing; it was shortlisted for the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction (NSW) and the Multicultural NSW Award, and long-listed for the 2026 Stella Prize.
Mubeen Khishany (joining via zoom) is an Iraqi writer and journalist based in Germany. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wasit, obtained in 2020. He is the author of the poetry books Kidnapped from the Hand of Comfort (2022) and Against Hope (2025), and has contributed to several literary anthologies. He received the Al-Rafidain Prize for his first book and the Qarib Press Award in 2023. He co-founded and edited Masqa Poetry Magazine and currently serves as an editor at Shirwmir Magazine. He writes in theatre and cultural journalism. He was a participant in the Writers in Exile program of PEN.
Sara M Saleh (joining via Zoom) is an award winning writer, poet of Palestinian, Egyptian, and Lebanese heritage, who has shared her work on stages from Brooklyn to Bangalore. Her work has been published in English and Arabic across dozens of literary platforms including Haymarket anthologies and the Guardian, and explores the experiences of Arab-Muslim women navigating faith, family, and cultural expectations amid dispossession and displacement. Her published books include; Songs for the Dead and the Living, Ghazal el-Banat and her most recent poetry anthology, Ritual.
Book Sellers & Archives
Abed Hawash (joining via Zoom) from Darkom, a Palestinian mobile bookstore that shares Palestinian literature and links people with the culture and history of Palestine.
Anna Emina from The Great Book Return, a living and growing archive of Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian and First Nations books, artworks and artefacts. Co-founded by Anna Emina and Celine Saoud, TGBR is based in Dukkana, Coburg on unceded Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung land. Anna Emina is an educator, curator and writer based in Naarm. Her practice centres around collaboration and seeks to create accessible opportunities for people of colour to connect with contemporary art in Australia.
Co-host:
Mwaffaq Al-Hajjar is a Syrian poet, artist, and researcher based in Naarm (Melbourne). His practice moves between poetry, prose, and visual art, exploring unhomeness, spatial thought, remembrance, and the politics of the self. He is the author of two poetry collections (Arabic) and the founder of the independent literary Arabic poetry magazine Shirwmir (شعر ومعر). In 2017, he was awarded the Poetry Prize for Refugees in Kuala Lumpur. He has a Master's in Comparative Literature, and his work has been published/ exhibited across Syria, Malaysia, Singapore, Greece, Qatar, Australia, Brazil and China.
Beit e’Shai Director & Co-host:
Rasha Tayeh is a transdisciplinary artist, writer, curator, and herbalist based in Naarm (Melbourne). She is the founding director of Beit e’Shai pop-up teahouse and art space. Curious about public pedagogy, and the idea of a teahouse as a school and a space for knowledge shares, Rasha’s work spans across cultural production and curatorial direction, herbalism, community development, as well as academic research and teaching. This breadth of experience informs her approach as an educator, curator and artist - one rooted in collaboration, care, and the creation of spaces that nurture connection, learning, and transformation.
Event details:
6-8pm AEST
Saturday, 29 August 2026
Location: Dukkana 99-101 Harding Street, Coburg 3058
Arabic Books from Darkom (Haifa) will be available for sale. As well as books in Arabic and English from some of the contributing authors.
Acknowledgements:
This event is held in Naarm on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Eastern Kulin Nation, with contributions from poets and booksellers dialling in via zoom from around the world.
We are proud to work with Tzkrti in Naarm (Melbourne) as our ticketing partner. Tzkrti ticketing platform powers Arab cultural events worldwide, based in Palestine connecting Arabic-speaking event organizers and communities across the Arab world, SWANA, and the diaspora.
For queries contact [email protected]
Artwork Credit: Mwaffaq Al-Hajjar
Beit e’Shai means “House of Tea” in Arabic.Beit e’Shai is a social enterprise founded in December 2017 by artist-curator and herbalist Rasha Tayeh. We are a pop-up teahouse and event space where friends and family gather to celebrate and share the beauty of our origins through herbalism workshops, tea ceremonies, tea parties, as well as music and poetry nights.Originally launched with an apotheca...
Know More