We Call to the Eye & the Night: Love Poems by Writers of Arab Heritage

Hala Alyan, Zeina Hashem Beck

$22.00

Publication Date: September 12th, 2023

Publisher:

Persea

ISBN:

9780892555673

Pages:

240

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Description

This landmark anthology gathers together almost two-hundred vibrant English-language love poems by living writers of Arab descent.

We Call to the Eye and to the Night is an amalgam of eminent poets —Hayan Charara, Leila Chatti, Nathalie Handal, Fady Joudah, and Naomi Shihab Nye, among them—and those who have just begun to make their mark. These poets are descended from diverse countries and represent a breathtaking intersection of voices, experiences, and perspectives. Divided into whimsical sections (named for lines from poems they include), the anthology features an evocative array of erotic and romantic selections, as well as ones portraying love of family, friends, heritage, and homeland. Exquisitely curated and introduced by acclaimed authors Hala Alyan and Zeina Hashem Beck, We Call to the Eye and to the Night is at once sexy, sensuous, adventurous, and nostalgic—a treasury of love emanating from the Arab world and its diaspora.

About the Author

HALA ALYAN is the author of the novel Salt Houses, winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, as well as the forthcoming novel The Arsonists’ City, and four award-winning collections of poetry, most recently The Twenty-Ninth Year. Her work has been published by the New Yorker, the Academy of American Poets, Lit Hub, The New York Times Book Review, and Guernica. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, where she works as a clinical psychologist.

Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet. Zeina’s writing covers a variety of topics: home, estrangement, language, the body, love, motherhood, and faith, among others. Her poetry often exists at the intersection of the personal & the political, the divine & the profane. Educated in Arabic, English, and French, Zeina has a BA and an MA in English Literature from the American University of Beirut.