Zeina Azzam: the COVID Poetry & Art Project
It’s the first week of spring, and we’re excited to share another poem about this season of rebirth and renewal. Zeina Azzam is a poet, editor, and community activist from Northern Virginia. In “Coronavirus Spring” she tackles the themes of hope and kindness. She told us, “I try to let my mind and body exist in this fraught space, to observe, feel, write when I’m inspired. Nature, in particular, holds infinite metaphors for us to learn from and explore. The tulips filled me with hope.” Pre-order Zeina’s new chapbook here! (It’s out in May 2021.)
Photograph by Jeff Norman
Coronavirus Spring
by Zeina Azzam
What I want to say to the tulips
that emerged, again, in March:
I am so grateful to count on you.
There is nothing else to gird me
anymore. This beauty almost
makes me weep.
Do you see how different
the world is now?
And they tell me: no,
as we know it, the world is still the same.
The rains arrived this morning.
The nightingale keeps working so hard
to sing. The starling wails.
If sickness comes
I want to be like the wise tulips,
store energy in my heart bulb
and come back after a hard winter,
dressed in bright turbans
of orange and yellow and red.
[© Zeina Azzam 2020. “Coronavirus Spring” was first published in The New Verse News and subsequently on MikeMaggio.net as part of the first iteration of the COVID Poetry & Art Project.]
Photograph by Jeff Norman
Chatting with Zeina
Can you tell us a little about this poem or piece of art and how you came to create it? How has the current crisis (or crises) influenced your art?
I wrote this poem at the very beginning of the pandemic. It was March and I was relishing the spring weather, walking every day. There were tulips everywhere! I was trying to channel my fear of getting sick with COVID-19 into optimism, like the tulips that stay in the dark earth for so long but then burst through with vivid life. I wanted to feel that even if I got sick, that I could come out of it and be strong again. The tulips were my models.
I think that overall, I have been writing more during this health crisis and the current social upheaval in our country; there is just so much to process. Sometimes I have a burst of creativity and other times I feel exhausted and depressed by the racism I see everywhere.
What role do you think the arts play in times of turmoil and uncertainty?
We need to express ourselves during these difficult times, and to do so creatively nourishes our souls. We can understand the world around us at face value, in a literal sense, as well as through the arts; there is a place for both. But the arts offer us a new way to make sense of our reality, one that allows us to imagine what we desire and what is meaningful, or helps us to put our finger on what ails or feeds us. In a sense, our creative production also chronicles our time, documents our experiences. And the arts provide a connection to others—in the case of poetry, readers may empathize or have their eyes opened or experience awe, or they may simply feel a wondrous appreciation.
What are you viewing/reading/watching/listening to these days?
I have stacks of books near me all the time. For poetry, I am enjoying Nathalie Handal’s new collection, Life in a Country Album, and Christopher Gilbert’s Turning into Dwelling. My chiropractor recently released a book titled The Healing Vibe, which I just finished; it’s about how the body works, the importance of what we eat, and the connections between mind and body. I love to read cookbooks as they contain so much cultural information (and let my imagination roam); right now I’m savoring The Palestinian Table by Reem Kassis. A novel I am reading is about Lebanon, titled The Disoriented by Amin Maalouf.
Do you have a favorite local writer or artist (DC area)?
The poet and writer E. Ethelbert Miller is a friend and mentor. He is described as a literary activist in the D.C. area (and beyond). He has helped me to navigate the poetry world, and I was honored to read with him a couple of years ago. Ethelbert is always exploring some new horizon in poetry and prose; he has a number of books to his name, including a recent poetry collection about baseball (If God Invented Baseball). He recently coedited an issue of Voice Male magazine with the theme, “Voices Against the Hard Rain of Racism.” Now he is working on a book of haiku. I admire his fine work and his versatility.
Anything else that you want to say?
I think we have to be kind to ourselves as writers and artists during this pandemic (and always, really). We should not pressure ourselves to produce, especially because we are living through an extraordinary time. I try to let my mind and body exist in this fraught space, to observe, feel, write when I’m inspired. Nature, in particular, holds infinite metaphors for us to learn from and explore. The tulips filled me with hope.
About the Poet
Zeina Azzam is a poet, editor, and community activist from Alexandria, Virginia. Her poems have been published in journals and anthologies including Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Sukoon Magazine, Pleiades, Mizna, Split This Rock, Bettering American Poetry, Making Mirrors: Writing/Righting by Refugees, and Gaza Unsilenced. She holds an M.A. in Arabic literature. Her new chapbook, Bayna Bayna, In-Between, will be published by The Poetry Box in May 2021. You can pre-order the chapbook here.
Find Zeina on Twitter at @zeina3azzam, and on Instagram at zeina.azzam1.