War, sex, rage, love, and drones—the brief, biting folk poems of Afghan women known as landays reflect the issues of our time. And yet, these poems are centuries old. A landay is a short, poisonous snake, and the poetic form of the same name allows women to subvert the social order, to speak out against injustice at home and in the world around them.

With support from the Pulitzer Center, photographer and filmmaker Seamus Murphy and journalist and poet Eliza Griswold have collected these poems in Afghan refugee camps, at weddings, and over plates of pomegranates. Through image and word, the two explore the impact that war has had on Afghan culture and expose the dark humor of Afghan life, which belies any facile notion that a Pashtun woman is a mute ghost beneath a blue burqa.

Join New America NYC for a night of reading, conversation and a short film screening with Eliza Griswold and Seamus Murphy to enjoy these surprising voices and to discuss their forthcoming book, I Am the Beggar of the World.

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