National Poetry Month: Hala Alyan
Patron saint of lost things: / napkin poem and thirty bucks and / I think her name started with M.
Posts by author
Hala Alyan
5 posts
Hala Alyan is the author of the novels Salt Houses—winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award, and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize—and The Arsonists’ City, a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. She is also the author of five highly acclaimed collections of poetry, including The Twenty-Ninth Year and The Moon That Turns You Back. Her work has been published by The New Yorker, The Academy of American Poets, The New York Times, The Guardian, and Guernica. She lives in Brooklyn with her family, where she works as a clinical psychologist and professor at New York University.
From the Archive: Rumpus Original Fiction: No Good
The sounds that she would expect here are entirely absent. There are no cries, no weeping. Just soothing, muffled tones.
Rumpus Original Fiction: Of Birds Alit in Trees
Her name is Selvakumari, but the name catches like a vine in the family’s mouth, comes out bungled and limp. They call her Sally.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Four Poems by Hala Alyan
Nothing’s Freudian anymore. A cigar’s a cigar. I want to love something. / I want to love something without having to apologize for it. Please don’t tell.