Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet and the author of two previous full-length collections of poetry – Louder than Hearts y To Live in Autumn – and the chapbooks 3arabi Song y There Was and How Much There Was. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Rejas de arado, Poesía, and elsewhere. She is also the co-creator and co-host with poet Farah Chamma of Maqsouda, a podcast about Arabic poetry produced by Sowt. Educated in Arabic, English, and French, she has a bachelor’s degree and an M.A. in English literature from the American University of Beirut. In O (Penguin Books), Hashem Beck writes at the intersection of the divine and the profane. There she crafts elegant, candid poems that simultaneously exude a boundless curiosity and a deep knowingness. Formally electrifying – from lyrics and triptychs to ghazals and duets, in which English and Arabic echo and contradict each other – O explores the limits of language, notions of home and exile, and stirring visions of motherhood, memory, and faith.