Spring 2025
Where Do You Live? ين تعيش؟ by Hanaa Ahmed Jabr and Jennifer Jean, the first HSI poetry publication, will be celebrated at the following events
April 19 - Nosrat Yassini Poetry Festival University of New Hampshire unhpoetry.com
May 10 - Arrowsmith Press Book Launch, 4pm Cambridge Friends Meeting House, Cambridge, MA Book sales
May 31 - Center for Arabic Culture Spring Festival and Book Fair (CAC logo)- Reading, Book Sales
June 1 - Massachusetts Poetry festival- HSI Panel, Reading, Book sales
Link to purchase at Arrowsmith Press
As part of the Arrowsmith Press Featured Poet Series, Jennifer Jean described the history and process that led to this forthcoming book:
“Dr. Hanaa Ahmed and I are both members of the HER STORY IS collective, a group of Iraqi and American artists who promote projects that expand linguistic, artistic, and cultural boundaries in response to global conflict, with a focus on centralizing the experience of women. For a long time, we were the only two in the group whose primary art was poetry. We wanted to know each other, but, after three years of kind notes and news of publications and prizes, we didn’t really know each other.
“In 2020, we decided to communicate more purposefully, to write ‘poem responses’ to each other’s lives and work as a way of answering the question: ‘Where do you live?’ We didn’t only mean where we lived geographically, but also where we lived in regards to our moods, obsessions, regrets, tragedies, delights, etcetera. We stepped up our communications via Zoom, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger and shared as much as our hearts would allow.
“Hanaa told me, ‘I was born in the war. I grew in the war. I’m still in the war.’ I told her my father was absent my whole life because he suffered PTSD and schizophrenia as a result of his combat in the Vietnam War. She said she writes what she calls ‘prose poetry,’ which eschews classic Arabic forms for a more natural way of speaking. I said it sounds a lot like what I would call ‘free verse.’
“Through our co-translator Wadaq Qais, we spoke carefully and wrote figuratively. We also worked with Wadaq to co-translate each other’s poems. This co-translation process added another level of intimacy to our exchanges because we had to consider each other’s words more carefully than we would otherwise. We were required to consult an expert in each other’s language since both of us are mono-lingual. This has been a slow knowing! A quiet dance. We shared about how we compose and revise our poems, about how poets make themselves immortal.
“Hanaa once told me, ‘A poet’s life is fated.’ This is true. I believe our friendship is fated too. And, I know we both hope readers enjoy the poems in our forthcoming, collaborative collection Where Do You Live? أين تعيش؟ and that they feel a part of what has been a life-changing relationship.”
Dr. Hanaa Ahmed was born in Mosul, Iraq. She is a prize-winning poet and short story writer who has participated in critical conferences and international poetry festivals. She has a PhD in Arabic Literature. Her books include the poetry collections My Sorrow’s Reward from His Collar and Zahr (Flowers), as well as two books of criticism: The Dialectic of Poetry and Prose in Modernist Poetry, and The Poetics of the Prose Poem. Additionally, she’s released a children's book: Sultan and Shanidar. Hanaa teaches at the University of Mosul.
Wadaq Qais was born in Basra, Iraq. She received a degree in accounting in 2021. Later, she found her true calling in the Translation Department at the University of Basra, College of the Arts, where she is completing her studies. Reading provided her a gateway to other worlds, allowing her to broaden her perspective and expertise in the disciplines of both literary and business translation.
2026: Other Paths for Shahrazad: a Bilingual Anthology of Poetry by Iraqi Women
Poetry anthology edited by Jennifer Jean
With an introduction by Elham Al-Zabaidy, a founding Iraqi member of the HER STORY IS collective
Forthcoming from Tupelo Press
About HER STORY IS
HER STORY IS, a collective led by independent women writers and artists from the United States and Iraq, promotes projects aimed at expanding linguistic, artistic, and cultural boundaries in response to global conflict and its aftermath, with a focus on centralizing the experience of women.
Read a Summary of HER STORY IS Work
"Finding a Common Language: Iraqi and US Women Seek Reconciliation in Dubai," by Nadia Abdulridha Sakran AlEsi, graphic by Thaira al-Mayyahi, introduction by Amy Merrill, Journal of Middle Eastern Women’s Studies, Vol. 15, No. 3 (November 2019).
For more information, see arrowsmithpress.com