Queer Tatreez Visual Poetics Chosen for Tendrils Literary Journal

Tendrils Literary Journal is a print publication as well as a highly competitive and curated online journal. For the online journal, only nine works were chosen out of many submissions and I am honored to be included in the issue. 

I am so excited to announce that work "Whispers (Queer Tatreez)" was chosen for online publication. The poem has a variable structure and questions...what happens to us when we can no longer hear the whispers of the poppies? The artwork in the poem is vividly stunning and references trauma, tears, and sumud.

Link to the issue:
 

Trauma and the Body Issue, June 2025
https://www.tendrilsjournal.com/issue1-trauma-and-the-body

 
Link to my work in the issue:
https://www.tendrilsjournal.com/issue1-trauma-and-the-body#whispers

Queer Tatreez Artwork - Gallery Exhibition

Many thanks to Doris Bittar and the Protea Gallery, in Los Angeles, for believing in and featuring my work. 

 

                                               

Queer Tatreez is an artistic style born out of Indigenous femininities, ancestral geographies, gender diversity/inclusivity, and the land that gives us life. The feminine images and Tatreez shown here symbolize cultural resistance, timeless existence, and the intrinsic loving divinity found through feminine connections.

You can see the work online by going to @protea.gallery on IG or by visiting these links:

Death Equals Silence (Queer Tatreez)
https://www.instagram.com/p/DLUzm2Rxumr/

Incendiary Kalaf الْكَلَفُ  (Queer Tatreez)
https://www.instagram.com/p/DLPqt7NxRVf/

Homecoming in Tetas' Tatreez Galaxy (Queer Tatreez)...For Gaza
https://www.instagram.com/p/DLPpbxPRXmC/

"For Queer and Trans Palestinians

in Palestine, and those

living in exile,

our love transcends empire."

--Micaela Kaibni Raen

Time in the Studio

 Last week, a gallery asked for one of my art pieces for inclusion in a show. I was very honored to be included. Then they said that they also want a picture of me working in my studio.

For so long...so many emotions have been poured into my art. Rage, tears, grief, frustration, despair, love, sexuality, pride, glitter, and sumud…my teary eyed hope.

However, on this day I was asked to take a picture of myself in the studio creating…what showed up was joy.

Click on the link to check it out...
https://www.instagram.com/p/DLOVXfDRN2P/

Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry

New Anthology Available for Purchase

This anthology is brimming with vivid Palestinian cultural vibrance while being deeply honest, fiercely emotional, powerfully resistant, and spiritually transcendent. Thank you for all you do…George Abraham, Noor Hindi, and Haymarket Books.

I am so honored to be included with such talented and amazing poets! The anthology includes one of my Queer Tatreez works of visual poetics.

Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry

Purchase at Haymarket Books

P.S. -->I am loving my shirt by MDabaieEye on Etsy.<--

New Queer Tatreez Artwork in Baladi Magazine

Dedicated to Queer/Trans Palestinians

living in Palestine and those in the exile.

Thank you so much Baladi Magazine
for this amazing opportunity
 to share my dreams
for our beloved Palestine 
and for us all. 
The artist statement included
discusses the inspiration for the artwork.

Click here to view:

Whispers' Screams (Queer Tatreez)

https://baladimagazine.com/whispers-screams-queer-tatreez/

Click here to view:

Wahid واحد (Queer Tatreez)

https://baladimagazine.com/wahid-%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%ad%d8%af-queer-tatreez/

Check out the magazine here..

Baladi

https://baladimagazine.com/

More exciting announcements to come! 

Tatreez Thoughts - Micaela Kaibni Raen

My creative works are most often inspired and centered by Tatreez, Indigenous Palestinian embroidery and textiles. Palestinian Tatreez, an organic part of our culture, also shares imperative values with gender, racial, and land justice movements. 

Wearing, creating, and working with Palestinian Tatreez is a powerful remembrance and way to connect with our ancestors, our communities, and ourselves. I want to thank our grandmothers for leaving this full, rich, emotional, and visionary legacy. A legacy of traditions, family, culture and identity. A legacy of hope, sumud, and land stitched in Tatreez.

I am so grateful to the Palestinian Tatreez Artists from yesterday, today, and tomorrow. They are the true archivists of our herstory, history, identity, and culture. Each new stich they lay, designs an exquisite blueprint for our futures. 

All quotes by Micaela Kaibni Raen.