The Pomegranate is a Grenade: Poems
Autor Maha Hashwien Limba Engleză Paperback – 22 oct 2026
Hashwi’s poems move between personal narrative and cultural memory, exploring how identity changes with time, migration, and the stories passed down through parents and community. She writes of resistance, tenderness, and the contradictions of belonging to more than one place, offering readers a vivid look at the emotional landscape of the diaspora.
Honest, accessible, and rooted in lived experience, this collection invites readers into the rooms, rituals, and relationships that shape a life between countries—and asks what we carry, and what carries us, when we call more than one place home.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781771684705
ISBN-10: 1771684704
Pagini: 176
Dimensiuni: 133 x 203 mm
Greutate: 0.13 kg
Editura: Central Avenue Publishing
Colecția Central Avenue Poetry
ISBN-10: 1771684704
Pagini: 176
Dimensiuni: 133 x 203 mm
Greutate: 0.13 kg
Editura: Central Avenue Publishing
Colecția Central Avenue Poetry
Notă biografică
Maha Hashwi is a writer and spoken word poet whose work explores the complexities of growing up Lebanese American in Dearborn, Michigan. Unapologetic in her identity as a Muslim and Arab woman, she writes at the intersection of culture, faith, family, and belonging. She leads a community writing workshop, Anyone Can Write, encouraging people of all backgrounds to put their stories on the page. Maha has participated in the Aspen Institute’s Summer Words Writers Conference in Poetry and the Tin House Winter Workshop. She now lives in New York City.
Extras
If the Lebanese Civil War Did Not Force My Family to Flee
If the bombs did not fall,
my mom would not duck at the memory
of fear thirty years later, when a harmless
helicopter flies overhead in a far away land.
If the loud noise wasn't silencing,
maybe my mother would still have a voice.
My parents would still be in Lebanon, having never met,
my mother continuing her art career in Beirut,
not very far from where my father could’ve stayed in his family's house, instead of leaving them behind in exchange for a college education in Ohio,
for money to be sent back, for hope to be held onto.
And maybe I would not have been born and maybe
I would've been okay with that,
if given the chance for my parents
to not have to evacuate, to never go back to their home,
to learn my home through them, the arab-and-american-ness
of growing up as half and half but never complete.
My Arabic wouldn’t be broken, it would be whole.
We would not be finding similarities in California’s climate,
the mountains silhouettes similar, the salty ocean air smelling identical,
the cedar trees just like our flag.
I wouldn’t have to explain to people where my parents are from because they’d know.
I would know, too.
If the war did not conquer,
if my parents survived,
if they lived in Beirut for the last thirty years,
separately or together, would the explosion of 2020
have taken their lives? pushed them out? of a place they were never meant to be?
If the bombs did not fall,
my mom would not duck at the memory
of fear thirty years later, when a harmless
helicopter flies overhead in a far away land.
If the loud noise wasn't silencing,
maybe my mother would still have a voice.
My parents would still be in Lebanon, having never met,
my mother continuing her art career in Beirut,
not very far from where my father could’ve stayed in his family's house, instead of leaving them behind in exchange for a college education in Ohio,
for money to be sent back, for hope to be held onto.
And maybe I would not have been born and maybe
I would've been okay with that,
if given the chance for my parents
to not have to evacuate, to never go back to their home,
to learn my home through them, the arab-and-american-ness
of growing up as half and half but never complete.
My Arabic wouldn’t be broken, it would be whole.
We would not be finding similarities in California’s climate,
the mountains silhouettes similar, the salty ocean air smelling identical,
the cedar trees just like our flag.
I wouldn’t have to explain to people where my parents are from because they’d know.
I would know, too.
If the war did not conquer,
if my parents survived,
if they lived in Beirut for the last thirty years,
separately or together, would the explosion of 2020
have taken their lives? pushed them out? of a place they were never meant to be?
Descriere
A powerful debut from an Arab Muslim poet and activist, offering intimate, accessible poems about identity, family, and belonging that speak directly to anyone navigating culture, change, and the work of finding home.