Zeina Hashem Beck
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zeina Hashem Beck | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Beck at a reading in 2017 | |
| Native name | زينة هاشم بيك |
| Born | |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Alma mater | American University of Beirut |
| Notable works | O |
| Notable awards | George Ellenbogen Poetry Award (2023) |
| Website | |
| www | |
Zeina Hashem Beck (Arabic: زينة هاشم بيك) is a Lebanese poet.[1] She is the author of the poetry collections To Live in Autumn, Louder than Hearts, and O, which won the 2023 George Ellenbogen Poetry Award.[2][3] Her poem "Maqam" won Poetry magazine's 2017 Frederick Bock Prize.[4]
Hashem Beck was born and raised in Tripoli, Lebanon.[5][6] She moved to Beirut at 18 and studied English literature at the American University of Beirut, where she earned a BA and an MA.[5][6]
Her first poetry collection, To Live in Autumn, was published by The Backwaters Press in 2014 after winning the 2013 Backwaters Prize in Poetry.[7][2] In 2016, her chapbook 3arabi Song won the Rattle Chapbook Prize, and There Was and How Much There Was was published by smith/doorstop (UK) as a Laureate's Choice selected by Carol Ann Duffy.[6][3][8]
Her second full-length collection, Louder than Hearts, was published in 2017 after winning the 2016 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize.[9] In 2017, her poem "Maqam" won the Frederick Bock Prize from Poetry magazine.[4]
Hashem Beck writes in English and Arabic. In interviews, she has discussed a bilingual poetic form she calls "The Duet", in which English and Arabic poems can be read separately and in relation to one another.[5][6][10] A 2026 article in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications discussed her use of shape poetry, translingual poetics, and multilingual forms across her poetry collections.[11] While living in Dubai, she founded and hosted an open mic night.[5][1] After living in Dubai, she moved to California in 2022.[12][13]
Penguin Books published her third full-length collection, O.[14] It won the 2023 George Ellenbogen Poetry Award from the Arab American National Museum.[3] Hashem Beck is also the co-host, with poet Farah Chamma, of Maqsouda, a podcast about Arabic poetry, and co-edited the anthology We Call to the Eye & the Night: Love Poems by Writers of Arab Heritage with Hala Alyan.[3][15]