Zeina Hashem Beck

Zeina Hashem Beck is the author of the mirror sonnet collection This Was Supposed to Be About Beauty (Penguin, March 2027) and Sublingual: Failing in an Other’s Language (Haymarket, fall 2027), her debut nonfiction book. Her collection O (Penguin) won the 2023 Arab American Book Award for Poetry and was named a best book of the year by Literary Hub and the New York Public Library. She’s also the author of Louder than Hearts and To Live in Autumn, as well as the chapbooks 3arabi Song and There Was and How Much There Was. Her work has appeared in LARB, Lit Hub, Poetry, and elsewhere. She grew up in Lebanon and currently resides in the Bay Area.

Nation Poetry

To a Friend Returning to Aleppo To a Friend Returning to Aleppo

We opened a bottle of wine, summoned mountains overlooking ancient cities, & cities, those pits of unease, & we left your mother’s illness alone—your mother, who insists yo…

May 3, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Zeina Hashem Beck

x