El Habib Louai is a Moroccan Amazigh poet, translator, musician and high school teacher of English. He took creative writing courses at Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, Boulder, Colorado where he performed with Anne Waldman and Thurston Moore. His articles, poems and Arabic translations of Beat Poets such as Michael McClure, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Diane di Prima, Anne Waldman, William S Burroughs, Bob Kaufman, Joanne Kyger, Amiri Baraka, Neeli Cherkovski and many others appeared in international literary magazines, journals and reviews like Big Bridge Magazine, Berfrois, Charles River Journal, Militant Thistles, The Fifth Estate, The Dreaming Machine, Al Quds Al Arabi, Arrafid, Al Doha, Al Faisal, Lumina, The Poet’s Haven, The MUD Proposal, the Dreaming Machine, Sagarana and Istanbul Literary Review. Louai’s works include America America: An Anthology of Beat Poetry in Arabic published by Arwiqa for Translation and Studies, an Arabic translation of Michael Rothenberg’s collection of poems entitled Indefinite Detention: A Dog Story published by Arwiqa for Translation and Studies. He also contributed with Arabic translations to Seven Countries: An Anthology Against Trump’s Ban published by Arroyo Seco Press. His first collection of poems is called Mrs. Jones Will Now Know: Poems of a Desperate Rebel which was praised by Anne Waldman, Thurston Moore and Michael Rothenberg. His second collection of poems, Rotten Wounds Embalmed with Tar, was a finalist for the 2020 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry. |
