Book Launch: We Were Promised Flying Cars by Kareem Rahma

Egyptian-American poet and digital media entrepreneur Kareem Rahma will be launching We Were Promised Flying Cars, his debut poetry collection of futurist and social justice-themed haiku, at Bluestockings bookstore. The event will include a reading and conversation with Jennifer Baker (Everyday People: The Color of Life), followed by a brief Q&A.

We Were Promised Flying Cars by Kareem Rahma is the most recent release from Pioneer Works Press. In its pages, Rahma shows us the future in haiku. Simultaneously a hopeful prayer for change and direct warning to the reader, Rahma makes masterful work of the haiku form to build a very possible future world dominated by corporations, an earth depleted of natural resources, and humans turned into zombies, glued to their screens. The future that awaits us is not the one we’ve hoped for or what we were promised, but a terrible culmination of we’ve done to ourselves. Elegant but caustically humorous, this prophetic vision can be returned to again and again, because even in the darkness, Rahma remains hopeful that we can still keep the promises we made in the past. Paired with Jean-Marc Côté’s nineteenth-century illustrations of an imagined year 2000, We Were Promised Flying Cars is not just for poetry and science fiction fans, but anyone interested in what tomorrow might look like.

We Were Promised Flying Cars will be available for purchase at the launch. It is current available for pre-order on our online store.

Kareem Rahma is the author of the poetry collection We Were Promised Flying Cars. An Egyptian-American poet and digital media entrepreneur, he was Growth Editor at The New York Times and Associate Director of Global Marketing at VICE. A recipient of the 2019 Above The Fold Awards from The University of Minnesota’s School of Journalism, he was named one of the most impactful Egyptians in the world by CairoScene. He lives in New York City.

Jennifer Baker is a publishing professional, creator/host of the Minorities in Publishing podcast, contributing editor to Electric Literature, public speaker/writing instructor, and editor of the short story anthology Everyday People: The Color of Life (Atria Books). She has written for various outlets in print and online. You can read more about her and her work at: jennifernbaker.com.

Please note, the book launch will be happening off-site at Bluestockings bookstore.