A Celebration of Arab American Poetry

Summary

Podcast Summary:

All Of It with Alison Stewart
Episode: A Celebration of Arab American Poetry
Aired: April 6, 2026 | WNYC

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Episode Overview

In this episode of All Of It, host Alison Stewart celebrates both National Poetry Month and Arab American Heritage Month by spotlighting poetry from Arab American writers. The discussion centers around the themes, language, and cultural contexts of contemporary Arab American poetry, shining a light on poets whose work navigates identity, memory, exile, and the current political climate. Alison is joined by Cleo Delassa, a member of the New York Public Library’s poetry committee, who shares recommendations and insights from several standout poetry collections, including works by Zaina Hashem Beck, Fady Joudah, Mohammed El-Kurd, and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Selecting Poetry for the NYPL List

[02:33–04:08]

• Cleo describes the process and criteria for the New York Public Library's 25 best poetry books list.

• Not just following trends, the committee prioritizes collections that "spoke to the contemporary moment," reflecting current social and political realities.

• Aesthetic diversity is valued: collections that engage with myth, experiment with traditional forms, and push the boundaries of the genre.

• Quote:

  "Looking for poetry that stood out, was outside of the box, but reached in with the history of the form." – Cleo Delassa [03:21]

• Cleo describes the committee’s process: everyone reads independently, then shares and debates favorites.

2. Featured Poem Reading: "The Economy" by Ariana Reines

[04:10–07:16]

• Cleo shares Ariana Reines' poem "The Economy" from her collection The Rose (“one of my favorites of the year”).
• The poem explores themes of self-perception, authenticity, and a sense of dispossession in consumerist culture.
• Notable Excerpt:

  "I know what it's like to pay money for such, the three-dimensional image of things, to find them feeling hollow and smelling wrong." – Ariana Reines, read by Cleo [05:35]
  "You are not a thing. You are not the object against which forces tilt that you cannot control. You are the entire subject of the world." – Ariana Reines, read by Cleo [06:37]

3. Spotlight on Arab American Poets and Their Work

a. Zaina Hashem Beck, O

[07:16–08:51]

• Highly regarded for bilingual work interwoven with Arabic and English.
• Her poetry uses translation, echo, and contradiction between languages, exploring themes of memory, family, homeland, and exile.
• Quote:

  "The Arabic and English serve both as like a translation, as an echo, and as like a contradiction of one another." – Cleo Delassa [07:40]

• Cleo praises its universality and emotional resonance, especially concerning national identity and heritage.

b. Fady Joudah, The Earth in the Attic

[08:51–10:22]

• Joudah is both a physician and a poet, and his medical and humanitarian work informs the gravity of his themes: war, displacement, and care.
• Poems rooted in his experience with Doctors Without Borders post-Second Intifada.
• Cleo’s favorite from this collection is "Resistance," which depicts an elderly couple’s domestic life amid conflict, reflecting healing and endurance.
• Quote:

  "There are a lot of poems ... with very intense themes of war and of healing as well, of caring for others." – Cleo Delassa [09:35]

c. Mohammed El-Kurd, Rifqa

[10:22–11:38]

• A deeply political collection named after the poet’s grandmother, connecting personal and collective memory with the land of Palestine.
• El-Kurd's poetry directly addresses war, loss, and the realities of occupation.
• Notable Quote (from Beck’s O, referenced by Cleo):

  "If I told you I do not choose to write about war and the children, would you believe me? I’m tired of knocking on the doors of empires." – [10:55]

• Cleo emphasizes El-Kurd’s boldness and the collection’s deserved acclaim:

  "He has a really strong poetic voice. I found his writing to be, like, really cutting and beautiful." – Cleo Delassa [11:09]

d. Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Something about Living

[11:46–12:51]

• Written after the March of Return protests; winner of the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry.
• The poems center on Palestine but have universal relevance, touching on issues like empire, borders, environmental destruction, and the cost of convenience.
• Quote:

  "Every empire seems invincible as borders submerge, its manicured hillsides incinerate between guaranteed next day deliveries." – Cleo Delassa (reading from Tuffaha) [12:21]

• Cleo hears echoes of climate anxiety and broader societal critique in these lines.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Search for Standout Poetry:

  "It's not necessarily books that were following a certain trend, but things that really reflected where we are in the world." – Cleo Delassa [02:49]

• On Bilingual Poetry:

  "The large majority of maybe what the poet's intentions are are going to wash by you ... other people will be able to have that interpretation that you don't." – Cleo Delassa [08:05]

• On the Intersection of Profession and Poetics:

  "He’s caring for others with, you know, destruction around them." – Cleo Delassa, on Fady Joudah [09:52]

• On the Political Weight of Poetry:

  "Mohamed El-Kurd is not afraid to write about war and the children. It will directly confront, you know, the genocide in Gaza." – Cleo Delassa [10:51]

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Episode Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:34] – Criteria for NYPL poetry list selection
• [04:10] – Poem reading: "The Economy" by Ariana Reines
• [07:16] – Arab American poetry recommendations begin
• [07:36] – Discussion: O by Zaina Hashem Beck
• [08:51] – Discussion: The Earth in the Attic by Fady Joudah
• [10:22] – Discussion: Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd
• [11:46] – Discussion: Something about Living by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
• [12:51] – Episode wraps up, further reading links mentioned

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Summary & Takeaway

This episode provides a vibrant portrait of the diversity and urgency of Arab American poetry today, highlighting writers whose linguistic choices, personal histories, and political realities resonate on a global scale. Through readings, analysis, and personal reflection, Alison Stewart and Cleo Delassa guide listeners to works that challenge, enlighten, and ultimately deepen our understanding of both poetry and the world it reflects.

For further reading:
Check out the full list of featured poetry collections at nypl.org.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[C]

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[D]

Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. April marks both National Poetry Month and Arab American Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the rich cultural contributions of Arab American voices. From classic poets to contemporary Arab American writers. There's a wealth of work that speaks to this moment and offers new ways of understanding the world around us. For example, Lebanese poet Zaina Hashem Beck's book O explores the limits of language as well as home and exile. Then there's Palestinian American physician Fadi Judah, whose poetry collects collection is called the Earth in the Attic explores identity, loss and displacement. This Tuesday, the New York Public Library is hosting a celebration of Arab American poets featuring special readings from 6:30 to 8pm at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library Event Center. To help us explore some more recommendations, is Cleo Delassa here from the New York Public Library? Nice to meet you.

[B]

Very nice to meet you as well.

[D]

All right, so the poetry committee read more than 200 books to select their 25 picks. How did you and your colleagues decide which collections to highlight?

[B]

What were you looking for that's a great question. I would say that we were looking for poetry that, you know, spoke to the contemporary moment. Not necessarily books that were following a certain trend, but things that really reflected where we are in the world, you know, both politically and socially. But, you know, when it comes to poetry, I think it's like, what can be really cool about it is looking for poems that sort of explored myth and explored, like, past forms. I remember there's a collection that I really liked called no Swaddle that was all like sonnets. So, yeah, I think looking for poetry that, you know, stood out, was outside of the box, but reached in with the history of the forum.

[D]

That's pretty cool to be on the poets committee at the New York Public Library.

[B]

It was pretty fun. Certainly quite the responsibility. But, you know, we just, we read our books independently and there'd be some chatter throughout the month of like, ooh, really liked this one. Keep eyes on this. And then we would meet at the beginning of the month and highlight the books that we liked. Inevitably get into some of the ones that we didn't care for as much. Yeah. And those conversations were always very fun.

[D]

Well, you're gonna read a poem for us.

[B]

Yes.

[D]

What are we gonna hear first?

[B]

We're gonna. The title of the poem is, I believe it is the Economy by Ariana Rines. In the book the Rose. The Rose is one of my favorites of the year. It was on our list. You know, it was actually kind of difficult to find a poem from this collection because a lot of it was maybe not safe for public radio.

[D]

Yes, yes.

[B]

But, you know, I thought that this one really got to the heart of the collection and was very. Yeah. Poignant, punchy and. Yeah, I'm excited to read it.

[D]

Okay.

[B]

The economy. I didn't love that I had this tendency toward melody or the appetite for drama, always obvious in my thinking and in everything I did. I wasn't TV though. I watched myself passively, as though brained or bludgeoned out of the fullness of my own reality. I felt I had to respect what seduced me, even if stupidly, even when it made me stupid or meant I was making of my mind a begging bowl, laying myself waste for the devil, making an innocent victim of the child within. So ferociously I did fear something adult like sovereignty. Survival was a big box store bought blanket, not wet, but scented with the antiseptics of the factory. It would take days to air out the get it to resemble the picture of something homey and grandmother made. I know what it's like to pay money for such the three dimensional image of things, to find them feeling hollow and smelling wrong. I know what it's like, the imitation of life. I almost know what it means. I disciplined my own form and the thinking within me. This may not be religion, but it was grim theology. The more muscle I had, the better I felt I could contain and conduct the sorrow within. The smoother ran my blood and lymph. My body dismayed me and I hated, adored it. Recurrent dreams of defective dolls kept coming back to warn me. You are not a thing. You are not the object against which forces tilt that you cannot control. You are the entire subject of the world. Tears rolled down a cheek of stone. My friend Terry writes about water and land, mother and brother, like a singer. I once despaired to her that the only endangered species I had managed to speak up on behalf of to that moment was myself. This seemed squalid and narrow to me. Terry said it was real territory. I blinked melancholy into the seething night. Like a spotted owl in the eye of a security camera. Black and white bird without offspring or prey. My body is filled with plastic. I left my mother to die. To write these lines. You will parry that such is a false economy, but so are all the other ones we live by.

[D]

In celebration of National Poetry Month and Arab American Heritage Month, Cleo Delassa, a member of the New York Public Library's poetry committee, is here to share a few suggested readings. Oh. By Zaina Hashem Beck. She was on your list before as well.

[B]

Yes. 2022.

[D]

Tell us something she does with language that draws you in.

[B]

Yeah. So a lot of her poems in that collection are bilingual. They're written in Arabic and in English, which, you know, I don't speak or I don't read Arabic. And there's a little note at the beginning of the collection that says that the Arabic and English, they serve both as like a translation, as an echo and as like a contradiction of one. I think this kind of speaks to something that I love out of poetry in general, which is that, like, you can kind of sit there and let, like, you can read the words and you can understand them, but you can also know that the large majority of maybe what the poet's intentions are are going to wash by you and that it's, you know, other people will be able to have that interpretation that you don't. I thought, oh, is an excellent collection. I really. I wasn't on the committee back in 2022, but I wish I was to. Yeah, there's a lot in this book about memory and family, like nationality and homelands, which. Those all come up definitely throughout the rest of the books that I, you know, read in preparation for this. And a lot of the contemporary Arab poetry covers a lot of those themes.

[D]

The Earth in the Attic by Dr. Fadeh Juda. It was published in 2008. It's both. He's both a physician and a poet. I love that combination. How do you think his professional experiences shape the depth of his poetry?

[B]

You know, it's really interesting because I sort of halfway through the collection, read some background on him and was like, oh, this is quite clarifying. I see. You know, because there is a lot of stuff regarding these poems were written. I mean, it came out in 2008, so a lot of it was written after the second intifada, and he was working as a doctor with Doctors Without Borders in Palestine. And I think that there is a lot of. There are a lot of poems in there with very, I would say, intense themes of war and of healing as well, of caring for others. It's funny, though, because I think my. There's definitely my favorite poem in this is a poem called Resistance that is, you know, actually about a couple, like, an elderly couple living in sort of, like, domestic bliss, like, in the midst of war. So I think, like, that is sort of speaks to his role as a doctor as well, is like, you know, he's caring for others with, you know, destruction around them.

[D]

Tell us about Rivka, Mohamel Kurd's collection.

[B]

Yeah, Rivka is excellent. That's 20, 21 written. It's like, a lot of it. Rivkah is about his grandmother and about the connection of him to his grandmother and them to the land of Palestine. It is, I would say, one of the. All of these collections are definitely very political. And there's a great line in one of the other. Oh, in actually in. Oh, that was, you know, if I told you I do not choose to write about war and the children, would you believe me? I'm tired of knocking on the doors of empires. And I think that is sort of, you know, Mohamed el Kurd is not afraid to write about, you know, war and the children. It will directly confront, you know, the genocide in Gaza. And he has a really strong poetic voice. I found his writing to be, like, really cutting and beautiful. And it was a collection that I, you know, you kind of saw everywhere for a period and I think deserves the acclaim and attention it received.

[D]

We've got about a minute and a minute and a half left. Is there anything poet that I haven't mentioned that you'd like to shout out?

[B]

Yeah, I really enjoyed reading Something about Living, which is a Lena Halaf Tufa which was written after the March of Return protests. It won the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry. And I found that the, you know, the poems, yeah, they really did center around she is a Palestinian poet around Palestine, but they are really universally applicable to the current moment. I thought there was one that really could have been written, you know, about the America today. Every empire seems invincible as borders submerge its manicured hillsides incinerate between guaranteed next day deliveries. And you know, I think it also like a lot of the read that and I hear climate change as well of like what do we sacrifice in order for endless convenience. I thought that was an excellent collection and that was considered for the 2024 list.

[D]

We have been talking about National Poetry Month and Arab American Heritage Month with Cleo d', Lassa, member of the New York Public Library's Poetry Committee. If you'd like to hear more about the list, you can find it on the Best New poetry [e-mail] thank you for coming to the studio.

[B]

Thank you so much for having me.

[D]

There's more, all of it on the way. The new series the Testament continues the story of the Handmaid's Tale set in an elite private school where future wives receive quote unquote training. Coming up, Star Chase Infinity and showrunner Bruce Miller will join us.

[A]

Now is your time to get into a new Dr. Horton home by taking advantage of its national Red Tag Sales event this Friday, April 10th through Sunday, May 3rd. Stop by any of its participating communities and find select red tag homes at Incredible Pricing. So whether you're buying your first home or looking for an upgrade, you don't want to miss the Red Tag Sales event. Starting this Friday. Discover the Dr. Horton Difference. Visit Dr. Horton.com Dr. Horton, America's builder and equal Housing Opportunity Builder.

[D]

Whether it's news from around the world or the latest from your neighborhood, New Yorkers engage with WNYC studios for the information and connection they can only get from our programming. Be a part of that conversation through your business's support. Learn [e-mail].