Marjan Naderi

Marjan Naderi
Marjan Naderi
	Photo of Marjan Naderi shot by People In This City (2020)Naderi wears green Keffiyeh.jpg Photo of Marjan Naderi shot by People In This City (2020)
Born
🏫 Education	The University of Virginia
💼 Occupation
Title	2020 D.C. Youth Poet Laureate
🌐 Website	www.marjanxpoetry.com

Marjan Naderi is an Afghan-American writer, performer and educator from Washington, D.C. Naderi is a 7 time poetry grand slam champion and has been nationally recognized by The Library of Congress (2018)^[1], The National YoungArts Foundation (2020)^[2], The United States Presidential Scholars Award (2020)^[3] and the Youth Poet Laureate Program^[4]. She served as the 2020 D.C. Youth Poet Laureate and is the author of Bloodline, a collection of poetry exploring her experience as part of the Afghan diaspora.

Awards

International Poetry Slam Champion hosted by The United Arab Emirates & The Smithsonian FolkLife Festival (2022)
D.C. Youth Poet Laureate (2020-2021)
National Presidential Scholar in the Arts Award Nomination (2020)
National YoungArts Winner (2018, 2020) Spoken Word
National Muslim Interscholastic Tournament Winner | Writing: Spoken Word (2020)
D.C. Youth Grand Slam Champion (2020)
Hyperbole Poetry Grand Slam Champion Runner-Up (2017, 2018, 2019)
Library of Congress National Poetry Slam Champion (2018)
Louder Than a Bomb D.M.V. Poetry Slam Champion (2018)
Urban Word East Coast Slam Champion (2018)
Northern Virginia Poetry Invitational Poetry Slam Champion (2017)

Early life and education

Naderi is the daughter of Afghan refugees. She attended Washington International Academy^[5] during middle school and graduated from Hayfield Secondary School^[6] in 2020. She attended The University of Wisconsin-Madison as a First Wave Scholar^[7]^[8] and Touring Ensemble Performer^[9]^[9] before transferring to The University of Virginia^[10] in 2022.

Naderi reports that she began writing spoken word in 8th grade for The D.C. Muslim Interscholastic Tournament (MIST)^[11] where she won 1st place for her reading of Ruby Roses, an original poem exploring her sexual abuse as a middle schooler in the Muslim community. She was acknowledged by the organizers for being "brave enough to confront a taboo topic such as sexual trauma in the Muslim community, where women are often shamed for their experiences."

During her time at Hayfield, English teacher Brian Hannon connected Marjan to Split This Rock and encouraged her to compete in poetry slams which lead her to join The D.C. Youth Slam Team^[12] and compete at Brave New Voices ^[13] (2018-2020). In high school, Naderi frequently performed at The Kennedy Center of Performing Arts^[14], The Strathmore^[15], Madison Square Garden^[16], and TED^[17]. She's been featured on The Washington Post, WAMU 88.5, NowThis News, NBC News, Nike^[18], The United Nation's Girl Up Campaign^[19] and more.

As a member of The Afghan Academy, Marjan spends her free time teaching Afghan children of the Diaspora Farsi, English, and Arabic. She has been working with The Afghan Academy^[20] to establish community events since 2014.

Personal Life

Naderi identifies as Afghan-American with Pashtun and Tajik heritage^[21]. She was raised by a devout Muslim mother from Herat^[22] and a tirelessly hard-working father from Kabul^[23]. She currently travels between Charlottesville, VA and Washington, D.C. She is the first in her family to attend college. Naderi holds adventure, intellectual exploration, and community building close to her core. She is passionate about reforming education and making The United States a more welcoming place for incoming refugees.^[24]

Family History

Marjan Naderi’s parents fled in the wake of the war in Afghanistan as refugees, moving to D.C. in 1999 before she was born, then traveling back to Afghanistan with Naderi for months at a time. Visiting Afghanistan with her family, Naderi built an intimate relationship with her heritage. She found deep solace and connections — she found home in these people when she couldn’t find it in her parents because of the war they had been running from and the refuge they were always seeking.

Splitting her identity between two countries, Afghanistan and the U.S., Naderi has felt herself absorbing a dual consciousness, feeling like neither her Afghan identity nor her American identity could ever be full enough or honest enough to fill her whole body — the story of many immigrants and first generation children. In her body and her soul, the two worlds blend together, creating a shared sense of home.

She remembers vividly the city of Herat, the third largest city in Afghanistan, home to over 500,000, its blue mosque and exploratory setting. Before the invasion, she fantasized about moving back to live in the peaceful land of her ancestors. She misses the innocence and purity of her people.

Naderi still has family in the region who lived through the Taliban’s recent takeover.^[22] When asked about how she reconciles her Afghan-American identity, Naderi explains, “There is this weighing burden and struggle that my country is falling apart and that my most closest loved ones are enchanted by trauma,” Naderi said. “So, ultimately, being Afghan is synonymous to survival of strength, of warriorship.”^[25]

Naderi has relatives and loved ones living in Afghanistan who frequently share updates about the country's socio-political state over phone calls.^[26]^[22] Naderi reports using their conversations as sources of inspiration in her craft.

Naderi feels the uncertainty flooding her parents’ home country, Afghanistan, and is working on providing donations and support. She has seen how the people are adapting to the situation as it changes, finding, in the face of violence, ways to hold one another close.^[21]

Naderi’s family had been supporting a group of orphans in the city of Herat in Afghanistan with groceries for the past 18 years. The orphans currently live on the outskirts of their city, staying in a riskier and more vulnerable position where they are not protected from the violence

Personality

“She was lively, she never backed down from a disagreement. She stood her own with adults. I knew she was something special early on,” Washington said. When Words, Beats & Life Inc. looks for a poet laureate, it’s not just looking for a good poet, “but an outstanding human,” he added.

“She was uniquely formed by her experiences as a child of refugees,” Washington said. “That informs the type of person she is, and we like that — we like people who absorb and watch and then respond.” ^[27]

Monuments

Strathmore Monuments: Creative Forces

Naderi was one of six national artists depicted in the "expansive portraits" of the "creative heroes" monuments^[28]. The Strathmore Center’s exhibit Monuments: Creative Forces^[29], designed by artist Craig Walsh ^[30] monumentalized "emerging artists who are speaking truth to power through their work" who were chosen because they "consistently harnessed their creative platform to address social imperatives." ^[31]

"Using those criteria, Strathmore came up with a list of 40 artists working in various genres who had a history with the arts center. An outside panel narrowed that list down to the six featured artists."^[32] Expansive video portraits of the honorees are projected onto towering trees throughout the Strathmore grounds.^[33]

"MONUMENTS is an outdoor public art project celebrating unsung heroes with large-scale portraits that are projected onto live trees to create a haunting synergy between the human form, nature, and the act of viewing. These stunning night-time activations challenge the selective history of representation through traditional public monuments through enormous night-time video projections that transform trees into sculptural monuments. Clients select the portrait subjects to be honored. Installations typically include three video portraits installed for four weeks of nighttime viewing, although the scale and duration can vary based on client needs."^[28]

CURATOR’S STATEMENT

"To meet Marjan Naderi is to find optimism. It is a reminder that the leaders and artistic voices of this next generation are emerging with deep and wide understandings of the world and the power of a single voice. Her poetry and spoken word performances hit powerful chords of relevance and shine a light on the perspectives of young people, particularly those in the Muslim community. Strathmore has been honored to work with Marjan in educational preconcert activities that allow patrons to get closer to the art"^[34]

STRATHMORE:

Strathmore creates digital monuments to influential local artists

Innovative artists honored in dimensional, outdoor video portrait exhibit in Bethesda

Strathmore Opens Unique Nighttime 'Monuments' Exhibit

VISUAL VERSE

Marjan Naderi's poem, There is Home in Survival, was featured in the 2020 installation of Arlington Art's Visual Verse designed by Robin Bell.

"Using the latest projection technology, Visual Verse brings a diverse array of poets literally into the public square. Poetry is an art form found in all cultures, languages and countries. As part of our ongoing response to COVID-19, Arlington Arts strives to foster community connection to arts and culture using delivery models that are safe in a time when traditional gatherings are not possible."^[35]^[36]

Community Work

Marjan Naderi served as the Washington International Academy's Regional 5k Head Organizer from 2014-2018. She raised a total of $130,000.00 in donations to Non-Profit Organizations over the four years. In a panel on Intersectional Feminism hosted by The United Nations Girl Up Campaign Annual Conference in 2018, Naderi shares, "After my Quran teacher, Sister Rowhiya, passed away in 2012, my teacher Zulakha Imran and I, began organizing annual 5k Runs and donating the proceeds in her name to Relief Organizations such as United Syrian Relief, Action Against Hunger, The Zakat Foundation of America, Islamic Relief, and more."

At the Washington International Academy, Naderi served as a Regional 5k Organizer from 2014-2018 and founded their Community Library in 2016. She taught Quranic studies at The Afghan Academy in Alexandria, Virginia where she explored the poetic elements of the Quran from 2016-2019.

Naderi worked at The Afghan Academy as an event organizer for the Afghan Academy Professional Network in Northern, Virginia.

In response to the U.S. Withdrawal in Afghanistan, Marjan Naderi co-founded One Afghanistan, a new organization aiming to unify the Afghan diaspora around peace, wellness, safety and security for the people of Afghanistan.^[26] in 2021.

In response to the U.S. Withdrawal out of Afghanistan in 2021, Marjan Naderi co-founded One Afghanistan, an organization aiming to unify the Afghan diaspora around peace, wellness, safety and security for the people of Afghanistan.^[26].

As an intern, Marjan worked with Brian Hannon and Joseph L.M.S. Green to establish the L.M.S. Curriculum in 2020.

Naderi's work has been featured in curricula including Fairfax County Public Schools, Arlington County, Bryant University, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, The University of Virginia, and L.M.S. Voice.

As a teaching artist, Marjan has served as a Teaching Artist with D.C. Scores^[37].

Naderi has been featured in The Washington Post and The D.C. Line for her service work during The Black Lives Matter Protests in 2018. Naderi raised $12,000 overnight on Instagram to curate care packages for Protesters in Washington, D.C.

Marjan has used her platform to raise funds for Afghanistan and The Black Lives Matter Protests. Using social media as a source to raise funds, Naderi has raised funds to provide $4,000 in groceries for Afghans during times when 97% of the Afghan population were living under the poverty line.

"You cannot walk in the streets of Herat and stretch out your leg without accidentally kicking a poet"^[26] - Afghan Proverb

"Poetry was embedded within our culture, our people were precise with their tongues and how they offered themselves through language."

[The Taliban is] a very oppressive regime, very violent,” Naderi said. “[Yet] people are finding their love of each other. And ultimately, that is the biggest help — it’s to find love in each other, even if it is across the world and opening a door for an Afghan refugee, an Afghan immigrant, or starting the conversation about the beauty of the country and remembering in the country and learning about the country without political knowledge or context.

When the Black Lives Matter protests began, Naderi felt compelled to help. She organized a social media fundraiser that raised thousands of dollars. She used that money to buy food and health supplies for activists who protested for weeks in the city.^[27]

“I saw what community meant at its rawest core, to be a tribe and to ever expand that tribe for love, to be human, becoming human at its forefront,” Naderi said. ^[27]

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About her work

who writes poetry about her family, her hometown in Afghanistan and her experience living in America as an Afghan American, believes in the power of artistry as a way to live on, remember and begin the process of healing from tragedy. In the wake of the Taliban taking over Afghanistan, she has turned to her work as a way to remember the beauty which fills her culture, home and stories ^[21]

believes that the greatest form of help and assistance that people can provide is empowerment — giving Afghan people a platform to share their stories and experiences, offering them sustenance so that they have the energy to be empowered, reaching out to state legislators and rallying for programs for Afghan refugees

I was really thinking about what is left of this country,” Naderi, the young Afghan American poet and daughter of refugees said. “I referred back to my chapbook for a moment. I felt like it was the only thing left for me to do. It reminded me that Afghanistan will be in my blood.

“A majority of my poems are blossomed from being out, seeing human beings carry themselves with nuance and joy and stories,” Naderi said. “I love writing portrait poems, going into various spaces and seeing life happen in its rawest form.” ^[27]

Without the opportunities to observe people and find inspiration, Naderi said her mental health and creative writing both suffered. She also struggled to create poetry spaces online, but Naderi knew she had to keep expressing her feelings.

“I still kept [up with] my writing because I know that is the only thing that gets me through so much of being alive, so much of every day, where every moment can be a boost of joy or absolute agony or suffering,” Naderi said. ^[27]

For Naderi, the seed of creative writing was planted when she set out to document her journey of self-discovery and growth. Her work breathes life into overlooked stories while touching on feminism, politics, culture, and family dynamics. Cloaked in a jean jacket emblazed with the phrase “Words not Walls,” Naderi takes the stage to perform her spoken word poetry.^[34]

While the themes of her writing—cultural heritage and generational trauma—are heavy subjects, Naderi believes that poetry is a powerful medium for building immediate connections with audiences on the journey to compassion and acceptance.^[34]

Naderi often turns to her mother as a source of inspiration when writing about Afghanistan's war, feminism, and various other topics.

"We had this unspoken tension in the home, where I had seen my mother and her depression calling back in, but I didn’t know what to say because I had known the reason why, but no words that would leave my mouth would be enough to comfort her other than saying, ‘We are here now," ^[21]