Sam Reichman
Sam’s research explores the effects of multimodal, multilingual group translation on social cohesion and associations with local identity.
PhD Candidate in Literary Translation Studies
School of Languages and Cultures
Qualifications
Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, Hunter College, 2020
Bachelor of Arts in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, Columbia University in the City of New York, 2015
Profile
Sam began studying Arabic in high school and continued to study the language throughout his undergraduate education. After completing his B.A., Sam worked in forced migration before studying drawing and painting at The Art Students League of New York. He later completed his M.F.A. in Creative Writing, focusing on poetry.
During his M.F.A., Sam began translating Badr Shākir al-Sayyāb’s poetry.
Al-Sayyāb (1925 – 1964) was a groundbreaking Iraqi poet known primarily for helping invent Arabic free verse and for his leading role in the Tammūzī movement, which infused the modern Arab world with pre-Islamic mythology.
Sam began studying te reo Māori and Classical Hebrew shortly after beginning his PhD. Sam is combining these languages with Arabic and English in his translations of al-Sayyāb’s work, original poems written in response to or ‘after’ al-Sayyāb’s poetry, and illustrations of these translations. His current research explores how workshopping these creative components with stakeholder communities affects social cohesion and conceptions of local identity.
Supervisors
Professor
School of Languages and Cultures
Associate Professor
Waiteata Press
Publications
- “Narrow Motorway to the Interior,” Headland, 2026
- “Madame X’s Lesson,” The Metropolitan Review, 2025
- “Alone again,” a fine line, 2025
- Badr Shākir al-Sayyāb’s “Rain Song,” Washington Square Review, 2024
- “Drift,” Artistonish Magazine, 2023
- “Court Poet for a Night,” Pinky Thinker Press, 2022
- “What is War Poetry? A Focus on the Bhagavad Gita,” Consequence, 2022
- “Poetics of Witness: Graham Barnhart’s The War Makes Everyone Lonely and Nomi Stone’s Kill Class,” Consequence Forum, 2021
- “Mother Memories” and “Heaven Cannot Hold Her,” Sand Hills Literary Magazine, 2021
- “After a Disappointing Gallery Opening,” Cagibi, 2020
- “Tanya,” “Edge Light,” “Shipwreck,” “Hamsa” and “Red Esteban,” Rappahannock Review, 2020
- Badr Shākir al-Sayyāb’s “In the Arab Maghreb / In the Arab West,” ArabLit Quarterly, 2020