Books by Hayan Charara

A thoughtful new collection of poems, one that deconstructs the deceptively simple question of what it means to be gooda good person, a good citizen, a good teacher, a good poet, a good father.With These Trees, Those Leaves, This Flower, That Fruit, Hayan Charara presents readers with a medley of ambitious analyses, written in characteristically wry verse. He takes philosophers to task, jousts with academics, and scrutinizes hollow gestures of empathy, exposing the dangers of thinking ourselves separate / from [our] thoughts and experiences. After all, No work of love / will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart. But how do we act on fullness of heart? How, knowing as we do that genocide is inscribed in our earliest and holiest texts?Thoughtful but never preachy, Charara sits beside us, granting us access to lifes countless unglamorous dilemmas: crushing a spider when we promised we wouldnt, nearing madness from a newborns weeping, resenting our lovers for what happened in a dream. Good poems demand to be written from inside the poet, we are reminded. And that is where we find ourselves here: inside a lively and ethical mind, entertained by Chararas good company even as goodness challenges us to do more.

After a young Lebanese boy loses one of his beloved cats when his village comes under attack, he must learn to cope with loss and hope for a peaceful future.

These poems grapple with conflicts arising from a world in which the personal, political, cultural, and aesthetic are deeply entangled and often troubling. Charara does not shy away from the tensions, unease, doubts, regrets, or bafflement of this world; and his wide-ranging focus brings together people from all walks of life--a father obsessed with the boxer Muhammad Ali; a girl missing since the 1970s; a mother and daughter trapped in a submerged vehicle; and a suicide bomber, his witnesses, and victims. This collection shows us the mind of an inventive poet undertaking his work with careful consideration, authority, and heart.