Four Cities - Paperback

by Hala Alyan (Author)

Wandering from Detroit to Haifa, Tripoli to Brooklyn, the poems of FOUR CITIES reveal the underbelly of cities, bearing witness to narratives of love, occupation and faith. These testimonies are harvested from displaced landscapes, histories and languages, revealing the unsettled lives of immigrants. Using urgent, haunting language, Alyan evokes the unlikely backdrop of Palestinian bazaars and Midwestern junkyards, policed checkpoints and boisterous nightclubs. A Lebanese village burns while lovers kiss in Paris. A traveler unpacks her grief in the homes of strangers. This lyrical collection captures the interplay between adopted and imposed homes, the poignant legacy of exile.

Author Biography

Hala Alyan is a Palestinian American poet and clinical psychologist whose work has appeared in numerous journals including The Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, and Colorado Review. Her first full-length poetry collection, Atrium (Three Rooms Press), was awarded the 2013 Arab American Book Award in Poetry. Her collection Hijra was selected as a winner of the 2015 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry and will be published by Southern Illinois University Press. She resides in Manhattan.