O
(PENGUIN BOOKS, 2022)
“Western readers often consume books by international authors like perverse anthropologists, scanning for a word or phrase that buttresses their ill-informed preconceptions, cudgeling a writer’s meticulously woven lyric into vapid social generality. Zeina Hashem Beck’s O rebukes this tendency explicitly in an early poem: “I’m tired of metaphors about peace. // I prefer dark chocolate in the morning, / & a good window.” And then throughout the collection, she rebukes it with her truly undeniable poems—rhymes braid across multiple languages, intricate forms fracture under the weight of their subjects. In one unforgettable piece, a subtle incantation ends on the name of a flower that looses itself across the page like so many petals. Unforgettable, undeniable—these are the words I keep coming back to with O. Anyone who reads it in earnest will emerge better made.”
—Kaveh Akbar, author of Pilgrim Bell
“O is so full of life, of music and passion for life. In ghazals, odes, revolution songs and invocations of O the world comes vividly alive: ‘I carry a name & many cities,’ writes Hashem Beck, as her poems unfold the abundance of our world. Abundance, yes: so much tenderness, so much passion in these pages: just one language can’t contain it all, so the poet gives us ‘Duets,’ joining Arabic and English in the same stanza. The lyricism is vehicle of emotional impact—’I Beiruted East Houston at first sight,’ the poet tells us, and we trust this playfulness and nuance because it is driven by a ritual. Because the ritual isn’t separated from the necessity of daily life in these pages. Because most daily things still have a wisp of prayer in them. Because Hashem Beck’s prayer isn’t shy of calling for revolution, of asking ‘to occupy the streets, bring the tires, the sofas, the drums, the blaring cars.’ Zeina Hashem Beck’s prayer isn’t afraid of stories, of new music on your balconies. Listen. Her O brims with the world.”
—Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa
“Readers will feel estranged from their received ideas about things, all the while wondrously belonging to the world that Zeina creates. A world of obscured lives, absent people, and memories that slip from our fingers, but a world that nevertheless feels new, unlived. Only poetry is capable of making up for the fact that everything deserts us, and reading O reminds us how urgently we need poetry.”
—Asmaa Azaizeh, author of Don’t Believe Me If I Talk to You of War
“Zeina Hashem Beck’s O brims with abundant voice and gleams with generosity of both spirit and insight, rich as it is with large—and large-hearted—poems that make space for whole worlds as they pull you in ever closer. Here’s to a poet who teaches us how to find the praiseworthy in this heartbreaking world.”
—Carrie Fountain, author of The Life
Louder than Hearts (2017)
Winner of the 2016 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize
“I don't know how Zeina Hashem Beck is able to do this. Her poems feel like whole worlds. Potent conversations with the self, the soul, the many landscapes of being, and the news that confounds us all - her poems weave two languages into a perfect fabric of presence, with an almost mystical sense of pacing and power. "You Fixed It" might be one of the masterpieces of our time. There is death, loss, disaster, but more importantly, an exquisite sense of reviving language and poetry -- anthems of life, love, respect, abounding. Everything Arabic we treasure comes alive in these poems - readers will feel restored to so many homes, revived, amazed. Zeina Hashem Beck writes with a brilliant, absolutely essential voice.” ~ Naomi Shihab Nye
"Louder than Hearts is a book of vision, freedom and originality." The Asian Review of Books
"There isn’t a word of falseness, a hint of voguish irony — just a deep love for her subjects and her language and an astonishing ability to relay that in verse. [...] There’s no simpler way to say: it’s actual magic, the kind of magic poetry is uniquely capable of performing. Again and again in the collection, Beck demonstrates herself to be a sincere master of this conjuring." Kaveh Akbar on Ron Slate's Blog
"Lebanese poet Zeina Hashem Beck delivers a tour de force in her second collection, inviting the reader to join her in the emotional interstices between the Arab and Western worlds that she inhabits and embodies." World Literature Today
“These poems are sensual and serious. They have grit and spirit, grief and music. They give us a contemporary woman making her complex negotiations with history and culture in voice that is strong and discerning, God-soaked and edgy, able to carry both loss and beauty, to make music out of personal longing and cultural tragedy. ” Betsy Sholl, 2016 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize Judge
“Here, as always in the poetry of Zeina Hashem Beck the world pliés before us in all of its ruthless beauty and terror.” Best American Poetry
“Louder than Hearts … borrows from the poetry of Iraqi poet Al Mutanabbi; the music of Umm Kulthum; the taste of kibbeh; and the grief of Aleppo. From the English, we hear echoes of the Harlem Renaissance, Nina Simone, William Shakespare, Homer, a Greek chorus, ABC News, and Frankz Kafka.” The National
"Grounded, as always, in detailed observation, [Hashem] Beck records and hymns the ordinary gifts of physicality, motherhood, and living between two languages; a way of walking us through her world." The London Magazine
"Reading Louder than Hearts, it struck me that Zeina has invented her own language, something between English and Arabic." The Hindu
There Was and How Much There Was (2016)
“Whether drawing on myth or fairytale, or writing directly from women’s experience, these are powerful poems by a new writer with a remarkable gift for storytelling.” Carol Ann Duffy
There Was and How Much There Was was included on the Poetry School's Books of the 2016 list, praised for its "fearless reflections on female body politics." It was also selected among Best of the New Year 2017 on The Washington Independent Review of Books.
“What we see here is a breakthrough book, with unexpected events, and reactions that inform and inspire life as a modern Arab woman." The Washington Independent Review of Books.
“This poet is a rapt listener to her world… These are poems unafraid of wider, final reflections… This is a powerful, appealing pamphlet, rich with new stories.” PN Review
“Zeina Hashem Beck’s small collection of sixteen poems, a pleasure to enjoy in one sitting but layered enough to return to again and again, is like turning the pages of a family album in which none of the photographs have been hidden away. The book draws on women’s experience and uses myth and fairytale subtly and with assurance.” Antiphon
There Was and How Much There Was was adapted to the stage by Lebanese director Sahar Assaf, as part of the KIP Conference on Gender and Sexuality at the American University of Beirut on April 1st, 2017.
3arabi Song (2016)
Winner of the 2016 Rattle Chapbook Prize
"Rarely does poetry seem to matter more than while reading the work of Zeina Hashem Beck--a poet of immense talent and passion who is clearly at the beginning of a long and important literary career. 3arabi Song is a book of displacement and connection, of gravity and grace, and the human music that binds us all together. It's a tribute to the Arab world and Arab singers, to refugees and refusal, to hope and home, to sorrow and song. Like no other collection we've read, these poems feel absolutely necessary. This little book will break your heart then mend it." Rattle Editors
"From the beginning, 3arabi Song opens the broken world and finds the shards beneath shimmering with beauty and hope. These poems ache with the music of reverie, balm for a torn country where grief and loss are as common as prayer. War, ritual, songs on the radio, lovers, friends and family all echo in this haunting collection, the poems calling us to return over and over, to endure, like the mother who urges, “Don’t be afraid, just sing it,”.../“Sabbouha means Sabah means morning,”/she said. Not mourning with a “u.” Yes, that thing that shines.” Dorianne Laux
“These poems are brilliantly balanced between languages, between nostalgia and news, between Self and Other. I could read them over and over like, well, playing a favourite Fairouz record, but here the words are the music and the words recreate a world I love, savour and mourn.” Marilyn Hacker
"Zeina Hashem Beck’s 3arabi Song, winner of the 2016 Rattle Chapbook Prize, is a whirlwind of cultural and personal storytelling." Diode
“By the end of the pamphlet, [Hashem] Beck’s is a voice that has established itself firmly in the ear: unyielding, wise, and deeply compassionate.” The North
"...in times of distress, 3arabi Song’s sincerity and unyielding openness of heart come to the fore" World Literature Today
"Zeina Hashem Beck’s 3arabi Song is a testament to the most ancient of human expressions, the ability to lyricize experience—to entrance and to heal through song." So to Speak
"...3arabi Song is a book we all need to read, share and speak about." themiraproject
To Live in Autumn (2014)
Winner of the 2013 Backwaters Prize
"A series of 45 vignettes exploring life in Lebanon’s capital, it succeeds in evoking the city more powerfully than many full-length novels." The Daily Star
"Zeina Hashem Beck's To Live in Autumn is honest and passionate. I also get the sense that no one but she could have written it. That's not only because so many of her poems turn on Beirut, a city Hashem Beck clearly knows in intimate detail, but also because her lines often emit, seemingly effortlessly, the lovely musk of Arabic spiced with French. That Hashem Beck, even when she's writing from a student's point of view, manages to avoid the obvious tropes makes things even more interesting. I thought- judging this contest- "This person is going to be an important writer." And I still think so. Read her book and you will too. " Lola Haskins, 2013 Backwaters Prize judge
"These are poems that come from somewhere deeper than the heart. They carry knowledge and an awareness of what it is to be human, to be a woman, to be raw with the constant anguish of a broken homeland. Yet, they are humane, they celebrate, they inhabit that place where love and joy co-mingle with pain, with the broken promises of generations. This is a voice ringing true and clear, its message is heard in the heart as well as the head. It is essential, honest, authentic. This is a voice that will be with us for a long time, growing ever stronger, touching us again and again, teaching us what it is to live in this hard, complex, beautiful world." Frank Dullaghan
"In To Live in Autumn, Zeina Hashem Beck crafts a multifaceted portrait of the people and the streets of Beirut. Part love-letter, part elegy, Hashem Beck’s debut collection keeps the city from becoming “a shadow of a memory,/ the memory of a shadow” for poet and reader both, offering us instead “labyrinths/in which we get lost on purpose.” Stay a while, “watch the city unfold/ its colors again,” linger in “Modca/ the ancient coffee shop,” pass by “the deserted theater,” and listen at “the leftist pub” where someone is playing the oud and “his rough voice sinks/ through us like a rock.” This collection is as vibrant and sensitive as its subject—the city that “understands/ not being tired of being.” Join me in an enthusiastic welcome for a compelling new voice in Anglophone poetry." John Hennessy
To Live in Autumn was included on Split this Rock's list of recommended poetry books for 2014. It was also named a runner up for the Julie Suk Award.
TO LIVE IN AUTUMN is also available on Barnes&Noble, Amazon, Amazon UK