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.'' This collection is as vibrant and sensitive as its subjectΓÇöthe city that ''understands / not being tired of being.'' Join me in an enthusiastic welcome for a compelling new voice in Anglophone poetry."—John Hennessy