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Haymarket Poetry Presents: Daniella Toosie-Watson on What We Do with God

Join Daniella Toosie-Watson, E. Hughes, and Hanif Abdurraqib for a launch and celebration of Toosie-Watson’s debut poetry collection, What We Do With God.

Daniella Toosie-Watson’s debut poetry collection meditates on the politics of mental health, pleasure, and the natural world. In this book, the everyday miracles of insects are studied, celebrated, and made sacrosanct. Prayer and pleasure are two sides of the same coin. Propriety has no bearing on sensual connection and exploration.

What We Do with God dives into the grotesque, the bestial, the surreal, as a means to defamiliarize abuse; it’s a practice of reclamation. With an unapologetic impiety to holiness and waywardness, What We Do with God invites readers to enter a world where care extends beyond ourselves and those closest to us to ecosystems holding the wider world together.

“Do not mistake the whimsy and irreverence blooming through this collection as a lack of gravity–it is quite the opposite. These poems reinforce how brutally essential a playful imagination is to reckon with a deadly world where faith and grace are hard-earned. Toosie-Watson has compiled a glorious collection burning bright with a wild wit and an even more ferocious wisdom.” Tarfia Faizullah

Speakers:

Daniella Toosie-Watson (she/they) is a writer, visual artist, and the author of What We Do with God (Haymarket Books, 2025). She has been published in the Atlantic, Paris Review, Oxford Poetry, Callaloo, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. Her honors include the 2024 Oxford Poetry Prize Shortlist, the 2020 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, and a Graduate Hopwood Award & Zell Fellowship from the University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers’ Program where she received her MFA in poetry. Daniella lives in New York.

E. Hughes is the author of Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water (Haymarket Books 2024). They received their MFA in poetry and MA in English Literature from the Litowitz Creative Writing Program at Northwestern University. Their poems have been published or are forthcoming in Guernica Magazine, Indiana Review, Gulf Coast Magazine, Colorado Review, and the Rumpus—among others. They are a Cave Canem fellow and have been a finalist for the 2021 Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize, longlisted for the 2021 Granum Fellowship Prize, and a semifinalist of the 2022 and 2023 92Y Discovery Contest. Currently, Hughes is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at Emory University in Continental Philosophy.

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in the FADER, Pitchfork, New Yorker, and New York Times. His first full length poetry collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, was released in June 2016 from Button Poetry. It was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. With Big Lucks, he released a limited edition chapbook, Vintage Sadness, in summer 2017 (you cannot get it anymore and he is very sorry.) His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in winter 2017 by Two Dollar Radio and was named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and Chicago Tribune, among others. He released Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest with University of Texas press in February 2019. The book became a New York Times Bestseller, was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. His second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster, was released in 2019 by Tin House, and won the 2020 Lenore Marshall Prize. In 2021, he released the book A Little Devil In America with Random House, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the The PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. The book won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and the Gordon Burn Prize. Hanif is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.

Watch the live event recording: https://www.youtube.com/live/towhupw2ddA

Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org

More Episodes

Mar 11, 2026

Abolish ICE, Abolish the Border

Join Harsha Walia, Silky Shah, and Beatrice Adler-Bolton of Death Panel for an urgent discussion on the brutal enforcement of immigration policing in Minneapolis and beyond, and why resistance calls for the abolition of much more than ICE.

With at least 6 people dying in immigration detention in January 2026 alone, and following the executions of Renee Nicole Good, Alex Pretti, and Keith Porter Jr. at the hands of ICE agents, the call to abolish ICE can be heard across the US. In this conversation, co-hosted by Haymarket Books and Death Panel, thinkers and organisers Walia, Shah, and Adler-Bolton will discuss the realities of immigration enforcement, detention, and deportation; the history of ICE and the US border regime; and the many ways people can - and do - resist.

Remember that you can download three crucial e-books on migrant justice for free from Haymarket here, including Shah’s Unbuild Walls and Walia’s Border & Rule: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/525-free-ebooks-abolish-ice-abolish-the-border

Speakers:

Silky Shah is the executive director of Detention Watch Network, a national coalition building power to abolish immigration detention in the U.S. She is also the author of the recently published book, Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition (Haymarket Books, 2024). She has worked as an organizer on issues related to immigration detention, the prison-industrial complex, and racial and migrant justice for over 20 years.

Harsha Walia is the award-winning author of Border and Rule (Haymarket Books, 2021) and Undoing Border Imperialism (AK, 2013). Trained in the law, she is a community organizer and campaigner in migrant justice, anti-capitalist, feminist, and anti-imperialist movements, including No One Is Illegal and Women’s Memorial March Committee.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton is an author, disability and mad justice agitator, and theorist of debility, care, class struggle, and the state. She is the cohost of the Death Panel Podcast about the political economy of health, and the coauthor of the books Health Communism (Verso 2022) and All Care for All People (forthcoming from Haymarket). She is based in South Minneapolis and has struggled and organized against occupation by ICE and CBP with comrades and neighbors since "Operation Metro Surge" descended on the Twin Cities in early December 2025.

This event is organized by Haymarket Books and Death Panel.

Watch the live event recording: https://www.youtube.com/live/d9YJqx1zY2c

Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org

Mar 12, 2026

Venezuela in Crisis: US Imperialism, Maduro, and the Neoliberal Turn

Join four left Venezuelan voices for an urgent discussion of the neocolonial US intervention and kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro on January 3 and its aftermath. The event will examine the evolution of the Bolivarian process and its neoliberal turn under Maduro, along with the weakening of the social forces within Venezuela capable of resisting imperialist invasion. As the situation changes rapidly, speakers will also assess the post-invasion configuration under Delcy Rodríguez, the collaboration with U.S. imperial power, oil concessions, and the consolidation of a “Madurismo without Maduro.”

The discussion will challenge both pro-invasion narratives and apologetics for the Venezuelan state, advancing a left, anti-imperialist critique rooted in sovereignty, democracy, and working-class self-determination.

Speakers:

Simón Rodríguez is a Venezuelan socialist writer and journalist. He was a student organizer and later became professor at the Universidad de los Andes. When he was a member of the national leadership of the Socialism and Freedom Party, he ran as a candidate for the National Assembly in 2015. He is a founding member of Laclase.info and Venezuelanvoices.org and has published articles in Humania del Sur, NACLA Report on the Americas, The New Arab, and Rebelión and on dozens of electronic outlets, and his articles have been translated into six languages. He has given talks and lectures in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. He is coauthor with Miguel Sorans of the book Why Did Chavismo Fail? A Left-Opposition Balance Sheet (CeHUS, 2018).

Emiliano Terán is a sociologist from the Central University of Venezuela and has a master’s degree in ecological economics from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is a PhD candidate in environmental science and technology at the same institution. He is also an associate researcher at the Center for Development Studies in Venezuela and a member of the Observatory of Political Ecology of Venezuela

Gonzalo Gómez was a leader of the Socialist Workers Party from the 1970s to the 1990s. He was a key figure in the regroupment of Trotskyism in Venezuela and was a critical supporter of Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution. He participated in the Popular Revolutionary Assembly against the 2002 coup. Gómez also was a cofounder of the alternative media site Aporrea. He was one of the founders of Marea Socialista, a current that joined the PSUV, of which he was a founding delegate and part of the regional leadership in Caracas. In 2014, Marea was excluded from the PSUV and then broke with the Maduro government. Gómez participated for several years with the Citizen’s Platform for the Defense of the Constitution with several former Chávez ministers. Gómez has continued to organize with Marea Socialista as an independent organization and section of the International Socialist League.

Yoletty Bracho is a Venezuelan political science researcher currently teaching at the University of Avignon in south of France who studies authoritarian governance and popular mobilization in Venezuela.

Moderator:

Anderson Bean is a sociology professor at North Carolina A&T State University, as well as a North Carolina–based activist and editor. He is a contributor and editor of the book Venezuela in Crisis: Socialist Perspectives, out this month from Haymarket Books, and the author of Communes and the Venezuelan State: The Struggle for Participatory Democracy in a Time of Crisis (Lexington Books)

Watch the live event recording: https://www.youtube.com/live/cOe2ZWX7f8M

Get the book: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2604-venezuela-in-crisis

Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org

Apr 1, 2026

One Day Longer, One Day Stronger: How Minnesota's Labor Movement is Resisting ICE

“When a seed is ready to sprout, and when the conditions are right, nothing can stop it.” –Ricardo Levins Morales

In the last few months, Minnesota has not only made headlines, but history. The resistance to ICE atrocities has been fueled by working class collective action and care. There is much to learn about how the crisis is evolving, from January 23rd’s historic work stoppage to the continued daily, on-the-ground mutual aid and rapid response networks keeping people fed, housed, and safe from authoritarian aggressors. Hear from union leaders and rank-and-filers who have been active on the frontlines and behind the scenes about what we are capable of when we come together, and what must be done to keep growing worker power.

Speakers:

Paul Kirk-Davidoff - Twin Cities Labor Report

Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou - Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation

Feben Ghilagaber - UNITE-HERE 17

This event is sponsored by Haymarket Books and Workday Magazine.

Watch the live event recording: https://youtube.com/live/riV6B7D4diA

Check out WorkDay Magazine: https://workdaymagazine.org

Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org

Apr 7, 2026

Stop the War Now!: Against the US and Israel's Wars on Iran and Lebanon

The devastating US-Israeli war on Iran and Israel's war on Lebanon show no signs of ending soon. What is behind the attacks and how can we organize to oppose them without supporting the Iranian theocracy? Join Tempest Magazine and Haymarket Books for this important discussion.

Speakers:

Manijeh Moradian is assistant professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her book, This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States (Duke University Press, 2022), tells the story of Iranian students who organized against US support for the Shah of Iran in the 60s and 70s. She has been an anti-war activist for many years, serving on the United for Peace and Justice organizing committee for the February 15, 2003 global protest against the US invasion of Iraq. She is a founding member of the Raha Iranian Feminist Collective and a member of Feminists for Jina, a global network which formed in fall 2022 to support the women, life, freedom uprising in Iran.

Ida Nikou is a sociologist working on international political economy, labor regimes, and financialization, with a focus on Iran and the Middle East. She received her PhD at SUNY Stony Brook and is currently based in Germany. Her research examines how sanctions, neoliberal restructuring, and financialization transform class relations, labor precarity, and patterns of worker resistance in Iran. She has written on sanctions and labor struggles in Iran for venues including MERIP, Jadaliyya, and the Global Labour Journal, and is currently developing new work on sanctions, accumulation, and state restructuring in Iran.

Rima Majed is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the Sociology, Anthropology and Media Studies Department at the American University of Beirut (AUB). She is the co-editor of The Lebanon Uprising of 2019: Voices from the Revolution. Her work has appeared in several journals, books and media platforms including American Political Science Review, Social Forces, British Journal of Sociology, Global Dialogue, OpenDemocracy, CNN, and Al Jazeera English.

This event is sponsored by Haymarket Books and Tempest.

Watch the live event recording: https://youtube.com/live/l58tVX8d7tI

Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org