An Abdurraqib experience is in the works

Samaa Abdurraqib is drawing from the background detailed below and her current life in creating a resonant experience on this page.

Abdurraqib is a writer, naturalist, and the executive director of the Maine Humanities Council. She earned a PhD in English literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and taught at Bowdoin College, after which she transitioned from academia to the non-profit sector.

She lives on unceded Wabanaki Territory in Maine where she engages deeply with the landscape as a certified Maine Master Naturalist . Her writing often explores correlations of nature, identity, and resilience.

When she is not facilitating community engagement or writing, she is often exploring the woods and waterways of Maine. As an avid birder, she closely monitors their migration patterns.  Overall, she believes that even the smallest changes in the natural world can ripple out to have large impacts.

She is the editor of From Root to Seed: Black, Brown, and Indigenous Poets Write the Northeast (2023) and the author of the poetry collections Each Day Is Like an Anchor (2020) and Towards a Retreat (2025).