Join The Potter's House for a free book talk with Jalal about his first collection of poetry, A Woman Called Albatross. A Woman Called Albatross studies the life of its speaker, a man who has been saved by art, just as his mother, nicknamed "Albatross", is dying. Jalal's first collection of poetry has managed to capture the unaggrandized dignity of laboring via compassion in poems while holding onto lyrical playfulness. The collection is a ballad to the idea that redeeming love is found in giving it all away, in the care of others. Against the structured hatred and unfairness of the world, Jalal has written a love poem to Love itself.

Jalal was born in Lansing, Michigan and grew up in Ohio, settling down in Washington DC in 1993. A Woman Called Albatross is his first collection of poetry.