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O
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2022 BY LIT HUB AND THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
“ O is so full of music and passion for life . . . Zeina Hashem Beck’s poems unfold the abundance of our world.” —Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic
From a “brilliant, absolutely essential voice” whose “poems feel like whole worlds” (Naomi Shihab Nye), a poetry collection considering the body physical, the body politic, and the body sacred
Zeina Hashem Beck writes at the intersection of the divine and the profane, where she crafts elegant, candid poems that simultaneously exude a boundless curiosity and a deep knowingness. Formally electrifying—from lyrics and triptychs to ghazals and Zeina's own duets, in which English and Arabic echo and contradict each other— O explores the limits of language, notions of home and exile, and stirring visions of motherhood, memory, and faith.
“ O is so full of music and passion for life . . . Zeina Hashem Beck’s poems unfold the abundance of our world.” —Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic
From a “brilliant, absolutely essential voice” whose “poems feel like whole worlds” (Naomi Shihab Nye), a poetry collection considering the body physical, the body politic, and the body sacred
Zeina Hashem Beck writes at the intersection of the divine and the profane, where she crafts elegant, candid poems that simultaneously exude a boundless curiosity and a deep knowingness. Formally electrifying—from lyrics and triptychs to ghazals and Zeina's own duets, in which English and Arabic echo and contradict each other— O explores the limits of language, notions of home and exile, and stirring visions of motherhood, memory, and faith.
112 pages, Paperback
First published July 5, 2022
10 people are currently reading
465 people want to read
About the author
Zeina Hashem Beck
16 books49 followersZeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet. Her third poetry collection, titled O, was published by Penguin Books in July 2022. It won the 2023 Arab American Book Award for poetry and was named a Best Book 2022 by Lit Hub and The New York Public Library.
Her second full-length collection, Louder than Hearts (Bauhan Publishing 2017), won the 2016 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize. Poet Naomi Shihab Nye wrote about this book, “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.”
Hashem Beck is also the author of two chapbooks: 3arabi Song (Rattle 2016), selected from 1720 manuscripts as winner of the 2016 Rattle Chapbook Prize, and There Was and How Much There Was (smith|doorstop 2016), chosen by Carol Ann Duffy, who praised her “remarkable gift for storytelling” in this pamphlet rich with women’s voices. Her first book, To Live in Autumn (The Backwaters Press 2014), centered on Beirut, won the 2013 Backwaters Prize.
Her poem, "Maqam," won Poetry Magazine's 2017 Frederick Bock Prize. Her poetry has been featured on The Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day and has appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, The New York Times, Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere.
Hashem Beck invented a bilingual poetic form called The Duet, in which Arabic and English exist both independently and in conversation with each other. She is the co-creator and co-host, with poet Farah Chamma, of Maqsouda, a podcast in Arabic about Arabic poetry.
After a lifetime in Lebanon and a decade in Dubai, she recently moved to California with her husband and two daughters.
Her second full-length collection, Louder than Hearts (Bauhan Publishing 2017), won the 2016 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize. Poet Naomi Shihab Nye wrote about this book, “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.”
Hashem Beck is also the author of two chapbooks: 3arabi Song (Rattle 2016), selected from 1720 manuscripts as winner of the 2016 Rattle Chapbook Prize, and There Was and How Much There Was (smith|doorstop 2016), chosen by Carol Ann Duffy, who praised her “remarkable gift for storytelling” in this pamphlet rich with women’s voices. Her first book, To Live in Autumn (The Backwaters Press 2014), centered on Beirut, won the 2013 Backwaters Prize.
Her poem, "Maqam," won Poetry Magazine's 2017 Frederick Bock Prize. Her poetry has been featured on The Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day and has appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, The New York Times, Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere.
Hashem Beck invented a bilingual poetic form called The Duet, in which Arabic and English exist both independently and in conversation with each other. She is the co-creator and co-host, with poet Farah Chamma, of Maqsouda, a podcast in Arabic about Arabic poetry.
After a lifetime in Lebanon and a decade in Dubai, she recently moved to California with her husband and two daughters.
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August 23, 2022Four sections and I admit to struggling with the first (low point: "Dear white critic") but somehow the remaining sections rallied for me and I settled in with the voice nicely. A poet of Lebanon I did not know, Beck showed good range with different types of poems, most notably the triptych (didn't do much for me), the ode (which I like better), and some ghazals (they grew on me as the book marched on).
Here's an example of a ghazal:
Ghazal: Dear Beirut
For Beirut, August 4, 2020
You were never mine. I, never yours.
Isn't that true love's ode, dear Beirut?
I drove friends to the airport, watched them
leave before I left. This wound is old, dear Beirut.
The clocks stopped at 6:07. The windows are gone.
From my exile, I click, I read, I implode, dear Beirut.
My daughter kisses the bruise on my skin & says it looks like a country.
Inside us, there's a country where joy is sowed, dear Beirut.
To rage, to swell, to collapse. Like water, you break
in the face of what you erode, dear Beirut.
In my dreams, the sea is gone; the streets, without people or cats.
Then I remember music on your balconies in the cold, dear Beirut.
I carry a name & many cities. They're light & they're heavy.
Tonight & every night, it's you I want to hold, dear Beirut.
Also notable in this collection is the role of women in society. Beck devotes many poems to her mother, grandmother, and daughters. If we include Beck herself, both as child through memory and in the mirror to present time, it's all about family. Here's a poem touching on this theme, though its relative strength as a poem I leave to you:
Heirloom
I come from a line of women who describe
flinging themselves into death
but don't. My grandmother always announced
what she had swallowed. Always demanded to be taken
to the hospital. Always asked for more doctors.
Which means my mother hasn't learned nothing gets fixed
by being broken over & over again. She keeps
to the sea, baptizes herself in it all year, avoids
altitudes. Once, driving around a mountain curve
at sunset, she asked, Don't you wish you could just
drive straight into the belly of this valley?
I rent apartments on high floors though I've seen
my body plunge. I stood on the other side
of the railing twice. This scares me. I used to disappear
into the closet for afternoons. My grandmother's
been aging beneath her blanket for decades.
My mother hid in the bathroom & thought I didn't notice.
Once, in a fit of rage, she stirred a divine scent
on the stove & carried it to her sick mother, came back
with an antique vase from her parents' house
& placed it in the glass cabinet. Engraved, throne-like.
One day I will carry that. I used to knock over
the bottles & boxes on the dresser with the back of my hand.
This scares me too. Now I walk down the street & pray
for the music. When I told my husband,
If you listen close enough everything's dancing, try
to guess the songs, he laughed. But I'm telling you,
beauty always comes, you hear me?
It always comes.
Here's an example of a ghazal:
Ghazal: Dear Beirut
For Beirut, August 4, 2020
You were never mine. I, never yours.
Isn't that true love's ode, dear Beirut?
I drove friends to the airport, watched them
leave before I left. This wound is old, dear Beirut.
The clocks stopped at 6:07. The windows are gone.
From my exile, I click, I read, I implode, dear Beirut.
My daughter kisses the bruise on my skin & says it looks like a country.
Inside us, there's a country where joy is sowed, dear Beirut.
To rage, to swell, to collapse. Like water, you break
in the face of what you erode, dear Beirut.
In my dreams, the sea is gone; the streets, without people or cats.
Then I remember music on your balconies in the cold, dear Beirut.
I carry a name & many cities. They're light & they're heavy.
Tonight & every night, it's you I want to hold, dear Beirut.
Also notable in this collection is the role of women in society. Beck devotes many poems to her mother, grandmother, and daughters. If we include Beck herself, both as child through memory and in the mirror to present time, it's all about family. Here's a poem touching on this theme, though its relative strength as a poem I leave to you:
Heirloom
I come from a line of women who describe
flinging themselves into death
but don't. My grandmother always announced
what she had swallowed. Always demanded to be taken
to the hospital. Always asked for more doctors.
Which means my mother hasn't learned nothing gets fixed
by being broken over & over again. She keeps
to the sea, baptizes herself in it all year, avoids
altitudes. Once, driving around a mountain curve
at sunset, she asked, Don't you wish you could just
drive straight into the belly of this valley?
I rent apartments on high floors though I've seen
my body plunge. I stood on the other side
of the railing twice. This scares me. I used to disappear
into the closet for afternoons. My grandmother's
been aging beneath her blanket for decades.
My mother hid in the bathroom & thought I didn't notice.
Once, in a fit of rage, she stirred a divine scent
on the stove & carried it to her sick mother, came back
with an antique vase from her parents' house
& placed it in the glass cabinet. Engraved, throne-like.
One day I will carry that. I used to knock over
the bottles & boxes on the dresser with the back of my hand.
This scares me too. Now I walk down the street & pray
for the music. When I told my husband,
If you listen close enough everything's dancing, try
to guess the songs, he laughed. But I'm telling you,
beauty always comes, you hear me?
It always comes.
December 31, 2023
"my parents threw me in the sea
when I was two & I floated
they called me little fish
my parents trusted the sea"
"When asked to put 'from' in a sentence,
your daughter wrote, 'I am from my mother.'
You've decided you are country enough."
~Zeina Hashem Beck
Last year I began my year of reading blessed by the words of one of my all-time favorite poets Suheir Hammad. I decided I wanted to make it a tradition; to begin a year of reading anointed by the words of Arab women ringing in the new year like a call to prayer, a call to homeland, and Zeina Hashem Beck's poetry was literary bakhour and date syrup dripping from fresh gaymat. This poem collection settled deep into the hollows of my chest and nestled under my heart. The writing was beautiful and I quickly got lost in her words. I love that the poems had Arabic stitched in between the prose and verses and words like golden embellishments. O left me wanting even more.
Beautiful beautiful beautiful.
when I was two & I floated
they called me little fish
my parents trusted the sea"
"When asked to put 'from' in a sentence,
your daughter wrote, 'I am from my mother.'
You've decided you are country enough."
~Zeina Hashem Beck
Last year I began my year of reading blessed by the words of one of my all-time favorite poets Suheir Hammad. I decided I wanted to make it a tradition; to begin a year of reading anointed by the words of Arab women ringing in the new year like a call to prayer, a call to homeland, and Zeina Hashem Beck's poetry was literary bakhour and date syrup dripping from fresh gaymat. This poem collection settled deep into the hollows of my chest and nestled under my heart. The writing was beautiful and I quickly got lost in her words. I love that the poems had Arabic stitched in between the prose and verses and words like golden embellishments. O left me wanting even more.
Beautiful beautiful beautiful.
August 8, 2022
Gorgeous. Beautiful use of form.
May 6, 2024
Loved listening to the narration by the poet. It was wonderful to hear the poems read out loud, especially those in Arabic. There is something about hearing the language of your parents spoken out loud...it's so mesmerising and hypnotic.
November 24, 2023
// Pilgrim
"I see you collect the scatter of houses
that abandoned you. Friend. I see
you lick the backs of photographs
like stamps & still they fall from
your shoulders. In this one you are young—
before countries & children. Sit down.
Like you, I collect what worries me. Fatherlands
are ominous & comforting like the eyes
of those who love us, & my city is a leash
that suffocates me the farther I stray
from the Mediterranean between the buildings.
The swing sings its rust in the wind.
Neither water nor stone will do. I've given up
cigarettes & libations, I separate the jars
on the bookshelves-these are for the ash
& these for the pickled cheap icons.
No matter how much vinegar I pour,
the Marys never close their eyes. No matter
how many times dawn is slaughtered,
I cry when the minarets crow."
Discovering Zeina Hashem Beck a couple of years ago was like a revelation and Louder Than Hearts remains one of my favourite poetry collections of all time. I think that she's one of the few poets who have really excelled at ghazals in English (Agha Shahid Ali is the best, of course) and that is reinforced here too. O is an utterance that is the precursor to existence, a resplendent ode to "the body physical, the body politic and the body sacred". These poems exemplify what it means to occupy the margins of intersecting identities that require subterfuge for survival. Beck nails it in "Souk": "I code switch I dress switch / I silent I carnival I hypocrite." In "Dear white critic," she asserts: "Yes the earth turns & there is time between us, / but my universe is neither corner / nor as dark as you've called it." At the core, Zeina writes about love as revolution, a unifying force.
"I see you collect the scatter of houses
that abandoned you. Friend. I see
you lick the backs of photographs
like stamps & still they fall from
your shoulders. In this one you are young—
before countries & children. Sit down.
Like you, I collect what worries me. Fatherlands
are ominous & comforting like the eyes
of those who love us, & my city is a leash
that suffocates me the farther I stray
from the Mediterranean between the buildings.
The swing sings its rust in the wind.
Neither water nor stone will do. I've given up
cigarettes & libations, I separate the jars
on the bookshelves-these are for the ash
& these for the pickled cheap icons.
No matter how much vinegar I pour,
the Marys never close their eyes. No matter
how many times dawn is slaughtered,
I cry when the minarets crow."
Discovering Zeina Hashem Beck a couple of years ago was like a revelation and Louder Than Hearts remains one of my favourite poetry collections of all time. I think that she's one of the few poets who have really excelled at ghazals in English (Agha Shahid Ali is the best, of course) and that is reinforced here too. O is an utterance that is the precursor to existence, a resplendent ode to "the body physical, the body politic and the body sacred". These poems exemplify what it means to occupy the margins of intersecting identities that require subterfuge for survival. Beck nails it in "Souk": "I code switch I dress switch / I silent I carnival I hypocrite." In "Dear white critic," she asserts: "Yes the earth turns & there is time between us, / but my universe is neither corner / nor as dark as you've called it." At the core, Zeina writes about love as revolution, a unifying force.
December 27, 2023
some things should stay in the notes app
January 8, 2025
“Even the fearsome black lion in my dream / was delicious silk.”
January 2, 2025
Dear white critic,
If I told you I do not choose to write
about war & the children, would you believe me?
*
I’m tired of metaphors about peace.
*
praise the detainees who won’t be beaten into silence
praise those who wait for them under the rain
praise this October birth, every month be October,
every year, every ache and balm be October,
praise the dancing and the sweat and the tired feet
praise the swearing and the red flare and the rage
praise, praise it all, this revolution.
Close the roads and open them. Occupy the streets—
bring the tires, the sofas, the drums, the blaring cars.
Close the dead palaces of power and resurrect
the abandoned places, the squares, that infinite
country inside you. Close the roads and open them.
Close the classrooms and open the tents,
bring vinegar and cloth, bring your hurt and your tongue,
let it wreck and awaken and enthrall, this revolution.
*
I dream in Lebanese. I count in French.
*
Is this a sign
of growing old? To contemplate plants & acquire
a love for watermelon juice? To consider piercing your nose
or be seized by the brightness of this spoon
*
You were never mine. I, never yours.
Isn’t that true love’s ode, dear Beirut?
(...)
I carry a name & many cities. They’re light & they’re heavy.
Tonight & every night, it’s you I want to hold, dear Beirut.
If I told you I do not choose to write
about war & the children, would you believe me?
*
I’m tired of metaphors about peace.
*
praise the detainees who won’t be beaten into silence
praise those who wait for them under the rain
praise this October birth, every month be October,
every year, every ache and balm be October,
praise the dancing and the sweat and the tired feet
praise the swearing and the red flare and the rage
praise, praise it all, this revolution.
Close the roads and open them. Occupy the streets—
bring the tires, the sofas, the drums, the blaring cars.
Close the dead palaces of power and resurrect
the abandoned places, the squares, that infinite
country inside you. Close the roads and open them.
Close the classrooms and open the tents,
bring vinegar and cloth, bring your hurt and your tongue,
let it wreck and awaken and enthrall, this revolution.
*
I dream in Lebanese. I count in French.
*
Is this a sign
of growing old? To contemplate plants & acquire
a love for watermelon juice? To consider piercing your nose
or be seized by the brightness of this spoon
*
You were never mine. I, never yours.
Isn’t that true love’s ode, dear Beirut?
(...)
I carry a name & many cities. They’re light & they’re heavy.
Tonight & every night, it’s you I want to hold, dear Beirut.
January 10, 2023
Some favourites from this collection:
daily
triptych: you & my country & i
Dear white critic,
Everything Here Is an Absolute
Heirloom
Every Soul Needs Windows
prophecy
Say it,
Ode to Lipstick
We Are Young We Are Beautiful
Say Love Say God
triptych: reprise
Ode to Disappointment
Immortality (or on turning 36)
daily
triptych: you & my country & i
Dear white critic,
Everything Here Is an Absolute
Heirloom
Every Soul Needs Windows
prophecy
Say it,
Ode to Lipstick
We Are Young We Are Beautiful
Say Love Say God
triptych: reprise
Ode to Disappointment
Immortality (or on turning 36)
September 20, 2022
I wanted to challenge myself with the dual English-Arabic poems, and I ended up understanding only the English. But it was nice to see the flow of the Arabic language.
December 19, 2022
I love Zeina’s poetry. This collection had all the feels of longing for home, for days passed, and wonder of what the cities we love the most hold for us and us for them in the years to come.
August 5, 2024
4.5 for me on a personal level, rounding up to a 5 for the creation of the duet form.
Gorgeous, intricate poems that resonate. I absolutely love this collection.
Gorgeous, intricate poems that resonate. I absolutely love this collection.
November 14, 2025
Does some lovely things with form and language
August 9, 2022
“The idea of the Duet is that the poems in English and Arabic exist separately and in relationship to each other. The English lines are a poem in English, and the same goes gif the Arabic lines. Both languages should also form a poem when read together. When the Arabic and English appear within the same stanza, this means the lines are some sort of translation or echo of one another (sometimes this echo is a contradiction).”
Beautiful collection! The ghazals were my favorites. Every poem in here glitters.
Beautiful collection! The ghazals were my favorites. Every poem in here glitters.
July 22, 2022
Thank you Penguin Poets for sending me this arc to read and review. "O" is an interesting and great poetry collection. I say interesting because there are poems with English and Arabic. When they are in the same stanza it means the lines are a sort of translation. And sometimes a contradiction to one another. This collection talks about love, family, personal experiences, hardships, and longing. I'm not a religious person, but I liked even the more religious poems too. The author writes so beautifully and keeps one interested the entire time. I haven't read poetry in a while, but am so glad I got to read this. I haven't read anything like this before and can't wait to read more of Zeina's books.
August 3, 2022
My first month of @the_rumpus poetry bookclub, something I’ve been wanting to gift myself for years, and these poems were so good! Constant exploration of identity, belonging, language and wordplay, motherhood, allyship. I really haven’t stopped reading these.
Read
April 2, 202412 July 2022
B.A. Van Sise for the New York Journal of Books
If you live in Poetry World, you’ve been hearing about Zeina Hashem Beck’s O for a while now. The book, announced quite some time ago, has at times felt as slow to arrive as Christmas morning, especially as rumors have spread that—like holiday dawn—it is packed with gifts.
The rumors are true.
It is, without equivocation, a wonderful book, not just as a work of art but as a bridge between cultures. Between languages. Between the poesy of the past—before all beauty—and that of the present—before all, identity—and the future: before all, innovation.
You can feel her poetic influences here—so obvious they need not even be named—but also a clarity of voice and narrative that feels unique in an era that seems only to reward complaint or obscurity. Here the voice is reflective: Her poem on turning 36 closes “foolish gods that we were, that we are” and drives into a simple but stunning small meditation on the uneaten strawberries of her wedding day painted with all the colors that aren’t on the canvas.
One can feel the assembly of small observations writ large, the construction of life’s little beauties that become more obvious as time simultaneously slows and quickens with age:
“Once you mispronounce something / you can’t pronounce it ever.”
“It doesn’t matter because no one knows / what anyone else is saying.”
Make no mistake: There is no voice here but the artist’s own, and so it here succeeds at what the best poetry does best: teaches through empathy, offers a lens through another’s eyes, makes the specific universal. It is gendered and genderless. It is true to her age and ageless. It lives, like the artist, in one country and others. It is not a book but a portal, the very best of what poetry can be: We are all our specific lives, our specific experiences, our specific eyes. No one can ever truly see the same world that we do but poetry, in the best it is, uncovers a mirror through which we may see dimly, take a glance into another of the seven billion little worlds that wander and float all over our only slightly less little planet.
We can never feel what others specifically feel; true sympathy does not exist. When a doctor numbers her arm, but not enough, before a procedure the artist complains to success but no persuasion. “She reinserts the needle for more numbness, though she doesn’t seem convinced / I’m still feeling some pain,” she writes. No one ever truly is, of course, but now at least everybody knows.
“I wish we were still the same time zone” can be enough to make a love poem—the plums in the icebox of the heart—since no two romances are the same. But a lens on it—again, specific/universal—can be offered.
O is, at times, weird. This is praise. It is at times ugly. This is praise. It is also, unfailingly, beautiful. Weird and ugly and beautiful is specific, and it is universal. It is the truth of all of the little worlds we live and live in.
And so, Beck shuts the book with a prayer:
“What have you seen what have you seen
Little boat little boat goodbye
Little world little world I love you”
B.A. Van Sise for the New York Journal of Books
If you live in Poetry World, you’ve been hearing about Zeina Hashem Beck’s O for a while now. The book, announced quite some time ago, has at times felt as slow to arrive as Christmas morning, especially as rumors have spread that—like holiday dawn—it is packed with gifts.
The rumors are true.
It is, without equivocation, a wonderful book, not just as a work of art but as a bridge between cultures. Between languages. Between the poesy of the past—before all beauty—and that of the present—before all, identity—and the future: before all, innovation.
You can feel her poetic influences here—so obvious they need not even be named—but also a clarity of voice and narrative that feels unique in an era that seems only to reward complaint or obscurity. Here the voice is reflective: Her poem on turning 36 closes “foolish gods that we were, that we are” and drives into a simple but stunning small meditation on the uneaten strawberries of her wedding day painted with all the colors that aren’t on the canvas.
One can feel the assembly of small observations writ large, the construction of life’s little beauties that become more obvious as time simultaneously slows and quickens with age:
“Once you mispronounce something / you can’t pronounce it ever.”
“It doesn’t matter because no one knows / what anyone else is saying.”
Make no mistake: There is no voice here but the artist’s own, and so it here succeeds at what the best poetry does best: teaches through empathy, offers a lens through another’s eyes, makes the specific universal. It is gendered and genderless. It is true to her age and ageless. It lives, like the artist, in one country and others. It is not a book but a portal, the very best of what poetry can be: We are all our specific lives, our specific experiences, our specific eyes. No one can ever truly see the same world that we do but poetry, in the best it is, uncovers a mirror through which we may see dimly, take a glance into another of the seven billion little worlds that wander and float all over our only slightly less little planet.
We can never feel what others specifically feel; true sympathy does not exist. When a doctor numbers her arm, but not enough, before a procedure the artist complains to success but no persuasion. “She reinserts the needle for more numbness, though she doesn’t seem convinced / I’m still feeling some pain,” she writes. No one ever truly is, of course, but now at least everybody knows.
“I wish we were still the same time zone” can be enough to make a love poem—the plums in the icebox of the heart—since no two romances are the same. But a lens on it—again, specific/universal—can be offered.
O is, at times, weird. This is praise. It is at times ugly. This is praise. It is also, unfailingly, beautiful. Weird and ugly and beautiful is specific, and it is universal. It is the truth of all of the little worlds we live and live in.
And so, Beck shuts the book with a prayer:
“What have you seen what have you seen
Little boat little boat goodbye
Little world little world I love you”
November 6, 2022
Excerpts:
I’m tired of knocking on the doors of empires.
(from “Dear white critic”)
when i was a little girl i wanted to bury the afternoon
when longing was long & my parents slept & slept
i stood in the corridor & repeated i i i i i until i
flickered in & out of myself
(from “ode to the afternoon”)
I was terrified
when the doctor named the disease
& told you one can manage it these days—
there are pills, there is time.
I know we are not young young,
know the body is but a shell—
shoulders throb, hips need oiling
at the hinges, hair whitens—
but isn’t it too early? & death,
whichever of us it comes for first,
will it be forgetfulness or remembrance?
Of the two of us, you’re the one who believes
more. It matters what we tell ourselves,
so we tell ourselves
We are here we are here we are here.
(from “UNBREAKABLE”)
I’m tired of knocking on the doors of empires.
(from “Dear white critic”)
when i was a little girl i wanted to bury the afternoon
when longing was long & my parents slept & slept
i stood in the corridor & repeated i i i i i until i
flickered in & out of myself
(from “ode to the afternoon”)
I was terrified
when the doctor named the disease
& told you one can manage it these days—
there are pills, there is time.
I know we are not young young,
know the body is but a shell—
shoulders throb, hips need oiling
at the hinges, hair whitens—
but isn’t it too early? & death,
whichever of us it comes for first,
will it be forgetfulness or remembrance?
Of the two of us, you’re the one who believes
more. It matters what we tell ourselves,
so we tell ourselves
We are here we are here we are here.
(from “UNBREAKABLE”)
August 15, 2023
Day 14 of #TheSealeyChallenge 2023. O by Zeina Hashem Beck published by Penguin Publishing Group.
@SealeyChallenge @zeinabeck @penguinbooks
#thesealeychallenge2023 #sealeychallenge #poetry
O! For immediacy. These poems start instantly and insistently.
Some of my favorite moments:
The herons were no longer safe in the sky. They flew with prayer, then fell to us.
Every day, I open the door. I do it by looking at my daughter on a swing— eyes closed & crinkled, teeth bared.
here even the atheist prays for prayer is a sport like smoking in the morning & prayer is an art like singing in mourning
I’m tired of knocking on the doors of empires.
I come from a line of women who describe flinging themselves into death but don’t.
I liked the idea of an impossible god.
@SealeyChallenge @zeinabeck @penguinbooks
#thesealeychallenge2023 #sealeychallenge #poetry
O! For immediacy. These poems start instantly and insistently.
Some of my favorite moments:
The herons were no longer safe in the sky. They flew with prayer, then fell to us.
Every day, I open the door. I do it by looking at my daughter on a swing— eyes closed & crinkled, teeth bared.
here even the atheist prays for prayer is a sport like smoking in the morning & prayer is an art like singing in mourning
I’m tired of knocking on the doors of empires.
I come from a line of women who describe flinging themselves into death but don’t.
I liked the idea of an impossible god.
March 17, 2024
“how we measure time with pain but not without tenderness”
this book is very unique and interesting. especially the english and arabic poems in the same sentences, i think it adds more emotional and meaningful taste to the topic.
it’s about women, family, god, faith, the country they try to rebuild, and life that they mourn over. it is very personal and intimate. i do feel the emotion in some of the poems, but in other poems, i felt so uncomfortable especially when they talked about Christianity, and described it off-topic out of the faith that i understand.
May 24, 2022
Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read the ARC!!!
This was definitely a three-four star read for me. There certain one liners that I wish I could tab and highlight. There also poems that are bilingual or have translated versions of the poem as well which I LOVED seeing. Reading poetry digitally is different than reading it physically which I didn’t realized until today, and I think that’s affected my reading experience for this particular poetry collection. Either this was really gorgeous and the cover is stunning!!!!!
This was definitely a three-four star read for me. There certain one liners that I wish I could tab and highlight. There also poems that are bilingual or have translated versions of the poem as well which I LOVED seeing. Reading poetry digitally is different than reading it physically which I didn’t realized until today, and I think that’s affected my reading experience for this particular poetry collection. Either this was really gorgeous and the cover is stunning!!!!!
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July 6, 2023Poetry’s not my usual genre so it was on a whim that I borrowed the audiobook on Libby. But I really enjoyed listening to Zeina Hashem Beck’s reflections on her familial relationships, grief, joy, her faith and her home country, particularly to the bilingual English/Arabic duets. I got a better sense of the lyrical shape and flow of Arabic hearing her speak.
-Patron M.G.
-Patron M.G.
April 27, 2024
Absolutely gorgeous book. Got this after I heard her read at a reading in San Francisco, and missed hearing the poems in her voice. Still incredibly moving to read on the page–so much about love and getting older, the feelings in a place (Beruit, Brooklyn, etc.), and inheritance through generations. Favorite poems were "Everything Here Is an Absolute," "What the Returning Do," and "Heirloom."
July 31, 2024
I loved this collection and went back to it a lot throughout the summer. Beck writes longingly about Beirut somehow both proximally and from a distance. Several of her poems are "duets" which use both English and Arabic to form a composite work, and I practiced translating Arabic with them. My favorite poems were the ones written to or about her daughters: "Flamingo" and "Time,".
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August 8, 2024O was a good collection of poems exploring motherhood, faith, and the meaning of home. Beck plays with the form and of the poetry, such as with her triptychs, and often provides bilingual poems by incorporating Arabic text.
I particularly enjoyed the ghazals and the entry "Thank You, Antidepressants."
I particularly enjoyed the ghazals and the entry "Thank You, Antidepressants."
November 8, 2022
Solid collection with a lot about motherhood, depression, self perception, and disease. It would have been even more interesting if I knew Arabic, as some poems are written in both English and Arabic.
August 24, 2023
I read this for the Sealey Challenge. Well, I listened to it, so some of the interactions between both languages weren't rendered visually. I enjoyed the beginning sequence more than the final poems that were more autobiographical and conversational.
July 25, 2022
4.5. I loved how this collection mingles countries, languages, forms, loves, gods, and griefs.
August 28, 2022
full of many great poems. a pleasure to read and sit with
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