To Live in Autumn: The Backwaters Prize in Poetry

"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 subject—the city that 'understands / not being tired of being.' Join me in an enthusiastic welcome for a compelling new voice in Anglophone poetry."—John Hennessy