Book: O
Author: Zeina Hashem Beck
Year: 2022
Bookhad Rating: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
“…allowed love to become so easy.” — ZHB
One of my important learnings from my book review writing days is that a book does not exist in a silo. A book is an echo and it reverberates through the time it was written in. This is also why I’ve come to learn that taking ancient texts and applying them to modern day without context is dangerous, and we see that everywhere around us. However, that’s a separate essay altogether.
After a long time, I’ve started to read the context around books because I am determined to enrich my life again by whatever means possible. I’m unlearning how to live small, so I’m reading the interviews, the meanings of the translations, educating myself on form, and combing through critique. I am also peeling away at sunlight, dancing while dressing up, and feeling the goat cheese on my tongue fully before ingesting.
“Thank you god of coriander and spicy potato.” — ZHB
A friend introduced me to Zeina Hashem Beck’s work during our poetry book mail ritual in the pandemic. ZHB’s book Louder Than Hearts was a revelation not because I’m in love with the idea of Beirut but because she’s a really skilled poet, and it shows. What do I know about Beirut apart from the romanticism of it, its stories about literary culture and the women who frequent bookstores? I don’t know much never having been, never will be.
This poetry collection is titled O because ZHB wanted it to be an encompassing rite of passage through the vowels of the themes in this book — love, god, ode, afternoons, motherhood — and it took me until the end of this collection to really understand why she named it so.
I am yet to see a contemporary poet show so much skill at form. ZHB is writing ghazals, odes, duets (a form she invented), triptych, blank verse, and everything in between.
“I don’t think we really have angels on our shoulders.” — ZHB
Although the poems are primarily in English, she’s used Arabic and some French in her work as well — three languages that she’s grown up with and it is a joy to see her words on the page.
Poetry should be read lingeringly. Otherwise, it shouldn’t. I have taken my time with O.
This is superb work.
Bookhad
(06.10.2024)
Mini Reviews are a new format we are trying out at Bookhad to balance our love of reading, the busyness of our lives, our dwindling attention spans, and the tug of the magic of words. You can peruse our blog for our full length reviews that are detailed with nuance and critique.
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