Upcoming Events & Recent News
Upcoming Readings
Tuesday, September 24, Noon, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, ARTbreak Event Series:
Book Talk & Slides presentation of Hedy Habra’s new ekphrastic collection: Or Did You Ever See The Other Side?
Wednesday, June 26, 7-8:30 pm ET, Crazy Wisdom Poetry Circle Reading Series, Book Talk by Hedy Habra’s Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? & Open Mic
Email: cwpoetrycircle@gmail.com for Zoom link
ELATED and THRILLED that Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? is a winner for the 2024 International Book Awards! Many thanks to American Book Fest and to Jeffrey Keen for selecting my ekphrastic collection!
Honored and thrilled that my latest book, Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? was selected as a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Poetry Award!
Wednesday, May 22, 7-8:30 pm Crazy Wisdom Poetry Circle Reading Series featuring Khaled Jouma’a & Youssef el Khedra. Happy to be part of the Open Mic
Wednesday, June 12, 2-4 pm ET London Arts-Based Research Center Presents Psychreative: Lisa Marchiano: The Vital Spark, Becoming a Worthy Opponent. Happy to participate in the poetry reading section.
Tuesday, July 16, 8 pm ET, Words With You Reading Series, Featuring Hedy Habra & Open Mic
Register to attend!
Saturday, March 23 Noon: Reading and Q&A with Hedy Habra and Dasha Nisula at Kazoo Books.
Tuesday, March 12. 3:00 pm ET Indelible Evenings 2024 Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? Poetry Conversation with Hedy Habra
Friday, March 22, 5-8 pm Author Hop 2024: Portage District Library
Tuesday, Jan 30, 4 pm at Waldo Library, WMU.
Monday, Dec 18, 2 pm ET London Arts-Based Research Center Presents Psychreative featuring Sade Jackson: Writing Your Personal Myth Using Archetypal Astrology & Poetry Reading.
Thursday, Nov 16, 2 pm ET London Arts-Based Research Center Presents Psychreative featuring Patrick Curry: Arts & Enchantments & Poetry Reading
Wednesday, Nov 1, 6 pm.
Delighted to be part of this fun event at the Kalamazoo Public Library!
My fourth poetry collection Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? (Press 53 2023) is now available for ordering here! This ekphrastic collection focuses mainly on contemporary and surrealist women artists.
Cover art, Woman, Lotus & Crane, © 2020 by Hedy Habra.
Cover design, Paul Sizer.
Wednesday, Oct 18, 2 pm ET London Arts-Based Research Center Presents Psychreative: Aaron B. Daniels “The Abcanny: Encounters with the Inscrutable Alien. Happy to participate by reading my short story, “Flight” from Flying Carpets.
Recent Hedy Habra News!
Grateful that The Ekphrastic Review features my interview about Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? “IN CONVERSATION WITH HEDY HABRA”
Delighted that my poem “Meditations Over Phoenician Letters” is featured in the latest issue of LothlorienPoetry Journal!
Many thanks to The New Herald for reviewing my Waldo Talk on Or Did You Ever See The Other Thing?
Thrilled that The High Window features a wonderful and insightful review of Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? by Bernard Pearson!
Honored to be on Panoplyzine‘s Editor’s List for my poem “Or Do You Recall the Dawn of Aesthetic Pursuit? Video available here
Delighted to be featured in KnightLifeNews by Isabella Figueroa about my reading at Michigan News Agency!
WMU Libraries: Five Questions with Author Dr. Hedy Habra.
Honored that the California State Poetry Society features three poems from my new ekphrastic collection Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? (Press 53 2023).
Thrilled that MockingHeart Review features my ekphrastic poem “Broken Chords Under a Full Moon” in its fall issue!
Al Majallah’s Interview, Hedy Habra’s Fragmented Experiences, conducted by Osama Esber, with his translation into Arabic! Read the English original here!
Many thanks for Osama’s challenging questions! Love the artist’s insertion of my book titles into the necklace!
Honored to have nine poems translated into Arabic by Osama Esber! Grateful for this brilliant rendition featured in the UK-based DIFFAH.ALARABY.CO.UK!
My fourth full-fledged poetry collection Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? (Press 53 2023) was released on October 10,! You can order it here!
It is an ekphrastic collection focusing on women artists.
Cover art, “Woman, Lotus & Crane,” © 2020, by Hedy Habra.
Cover design, Paul Sizer.
New & insightful Book Review of Flying Carpets (Interlink 2013) on SuperSummary Cliff Notes (Oct 23 2022)
To watch this four-minute video, click here
To read the plot summary, click here
Excited about these recent spring/summer 2023 publications:
Gargoyle has accepted two of my prose poems for their summer issue!
Cider Press Review featured two of my poems for their spring/summer issue
Tiferet featured one of my poems in their print spring/summer issue!
California Quarterly accepted a poem for their summer issue.
The Ekphrastic Review Art of the Tarot Contest selected “What Do You Think I Do When I Pretend I’m Fishing” as one of the flash fiction Finalists
Pushcart Prize Nomination 2023 from Indelible for my ekphrastic pantoum “Would it Have Made a Difference Had I Known?”
Pushcart Prize 2023 Nomination from Lothlorien Poetry Journal for “Raoucheh”
Best Microfiction 2023 Nomination from The Ekphrastic Review for my prose poem “Or How Could We Ever Be Able to Resist Such Likeness?”
Pushcart Prize 2023 Nomination from The Apple River Review!
Thrilled that Editor-in-Chief, Leah Browning nominated my poem “Turning Around in Circles” for a Pushcart Prize!
Thrilled that The Ekphrastic Review features my poem, “Afterthought” and “Reading on a Table” after Picasso, from Under Brushstrokes
I’ve Got Questions for Hedy Habra. Many thanks to Cliff Garstang for these insightful and challenging interview questions about The Taste of the Earth.
Happy that MockingHeart Review features my poem, “Finding my Way to My Old House,” in their Fall issue.
Thrilled that Third Wednesday Magazine featured on March 10, 2022, my poem “What’s in the Flame of a Candle,” to appear also in their summer print issue!
Delighted that MockingHeart Review is featuring my poem, “When the Veil Shivers,” in their 2022 Winter Issue! Grateful to Tyler Robert Sheldon for selecting it!
Honored to have five poems in Vol 7 print issue of Lothlorien Poetry Journal, alongside so many outstanding voices. Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 7 (lulu.com). Many thanks to Strider Marcus Jones.
Honored to be part of Indelible Literary and Arts Journal‘s editorial board with Roula Maria-Dib, Pierre Cardascia, Omar Sabbagh, Lorette Luzajic, Joan Leotta, Lucy Holme, Gottfried Heuer, Claude Barbre, Josh Pachter, Paula Messina, Rosin Ni Neachtain, and Christine Murray.
Thrilled to have three ekphrastic poems in Issue 13 of IMPSPIRED, one of my favorite journals out of the UK!
So excited to have four new poems featured under Broken Vision in Vol 2 of Live Encounters‘ 12th Anniversary issue!
Honored to be featured in the Fall issue of The Night Heron Barks, with my ekphrastic poem, “Or Am I Or Am I Not A Knot Of Contradictions?” and my painting, “Meditative Egret,” in Chinese ink on rice paper. To read, click here
Thrilled to have five poems featured in the Lothlorien Poetry Journal!
Excited that Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art just published my ekphrastic poem ‘Or How Did We Mend Failings With Golden Threads?’
Grateful to Kali Lightfoot for her exceptional review of The Taste of the Earth, in Lily Poetry Review, Issue 6, 2021 “Review of Hedy Habra’s The Taste of the Earth.”
Thrilled to have two poems featured in Issue 10 of MacQueen’s Quinterly: an ekphrastic pantoum inspired by Remedios Varo’s Harmony, “Or Call Me A Hoarder If You Will But Try To Understand!” and a prose poem “Open-Air Rolling Skating in Heliopolis”
Grateful to Mark Tomlonson for reading from Flying Carpets for “The Library/WMUK”. Featured this week is my story, “Wild Ducks,” and “The Green Book” in an earlier show.
“How I’d Love to Decipher Even the Traces of Every Leaf’s Language,” is featured in Life and Legends in their “Poem a Week.”
So grateful for this brilliant review of The Taste of the Earth, by Roula-Maria Dib
Interview about The Taste of the Earth by Darrell Laurant for Snowflakes in a Blizzard.
An insightful review by Saloua Ben Amor, Knot Magazine “Review of The Taste of the Earth by Hedy Habra” Fall issue, 2020
The MacGuffin nominated my ekphrastic pantoum ” We Want Our Voices to Be Heard” for a Pushcart Prize 2021
Knot Magazine nominated my ekphrastic poem, “Or What Did You Think Would Happen When You Were Gone?” for a Pushcart Prize 2021.
Spectrum Publishing nominated “Selling the House” for a Pushcart Prize 2021
On the Seawall features my ekphrastic pantoum,“Or Can’t You See How They All Stare At Us Even the Birds Resting on Their Hands?” after the Immigrants’ Boat by Marilene Sawaf. Many thanks to Ron Slate for selecting it!
Bridgewater International Festival Fall 2020. Reading “Writing in Dust“
The Ekphrastic Review features my ekphrastic poem, “Hokusai’s The Great Wave”
Silver Birch Press. Poetry and Places “To My Son Upon His First Trip to Lebanon” (2020)
Spectrum 25: How to Stay Alive, features my poem, “Immured.”
Indelible “Mobilis in Mobili” “Waiting in a Field of Melted Honey” “Or Didn’t You Know It’s In That Opening And Closing That We Exist?” (2020)
Annahar English Carpe Diem, Perla Kantarjian ed. “The Abandoned Fountain,” “The Abandoned Stone House in Damascus (2020)
Spectrum: The Fall “Obsessive Compulsion” “A Glimpse of Fall” “I Want to Sing a Song of Freedom (2011) (2020)
Thrilled to have three ekphrastic poems featured in Poemeleon: The Plague Papers, an e-Anthology of Museums and poems, edited by Robbi Nester, and curated by Cati Porter
Review/Interview: The Taste of the Earth: Medallions of Memory in the Poetry of Hedy Habra/–TheLevant News.
So thrilled and grateful for Layla Azmi Goushey’s wonderful and insightful review/interview of The Taste of the Earth!
Hedy Habra–Tai Chi
Thrilled to have my artworks featured in the August 2020 issue of Live Encounters!
Many thanks to Mark Ulyseas. To see the paintings, click here: https://liveencounters.net/…/08-august-…/hedy-habra-tai-chi/
Thrilled that Hispanic Journal features my literary criticism article, “Ecos y resonancias de Borges en Barthes” ( Vol 41 No 1 Spring 2020)!
Elated that The Taste of the Earth (2019 Press 53) won Honorable Mention for the 2020 Eric Hoffer Book Awards in Poetry!
The Taste of the Earth was also an Eric Hoffer Grand Prize Short List Honoree in all genres!
Honored that The Taste of the Earth won the Silver Nautilus Book Award in Poetry!
Honored to have three artworks alongside three poems featured in the Spring Issue of the Taos Journal of International Poetry and Art!
Delighted to have four poems in the Western Voices Issue of SETU Mag, published from Pittsburgh
Kalamazoo Digital 2020 Poetry Festival.
Video Hedy Habra reads from The Taste of the Earth
Honored to have four poems and an interview in KNOT Magazine and to be the featured poet alongside Jack Marshall.
Interview in KNOT “Conversation with Hedy Habra” by Saloua Ben Amor
Delighted to have two poems in INDELIBLE (American University in Dubai) “Skin in the Game”
Thrilled that MockingHeart Review features a section from my long poem “Meditations Over the Eye of Horus.” This poem, formed by a series of haibuns ending with litanies around the sense of smell, is part of my new collection, The Taste of the Earth.
Listen to Habra’s Interview with Scott Thomas Outlar on “Songs of Selah”.
The Kenyon Review features my interview in its series VERVE {IN} VERSE: In Conversation with Hedy Habra.
Many thanks to Rosebud Ben-Oni for her challenging and perceptive questions about The Taste of the Earth!
Thrilled that Al Jadid Magazine Vol. 23, No. 77, 2019 published a review of The Taste of the Earth: “[Un]raveling all my senses.“ Many thanks to Editor Elie Chelala and to Angele Ellis for her insightful review.
Honored to have three poems featured by Peacock Journal!
Delighted that Live Encounters features two of my poems in their Fall issue!
Delighted that The Taste of the Earth is an Award-Winning Finalist in the Poetry category of the 2019 Best Book Awards sponsored by American Book Fest! 
Thrilled that World Literature Today’s fall 2019 issue features this excellent review of The Taste of the Earth! Many thanks to Inela Selimović for her intuitive reading of my poetry!
Excited that my poem “Or What If They Could Only Coexist As An Artefact?” was included in SEVEN HUNDRED LINES: A crown of Found/Fount Sonnets, celebrating Singapore’s Bicentennial (Desmond Kon, Ed.)
Honored that Verse Daily is featuring my poem, “Or How Can We Ever Cut Down to the Bare Essentials?” first published by The Bitter Oleander.
My ekphrastic poem, “Or How Did You Think She’d Rehearse Her Own Flight?” appears in Riggwelter alongside great writing and artwork!
Thursday, October 10th WMU Confucius Institute 10th Year Celebration!
So grateful to the CI for their wonderful teaching opportunities in Tai Chi, Chinese Ink Brush Painting, Calligraphy, and Mandarin, and for honoring me with this special recognition!
My third poetry collection, The Taste of the Earth was released July 1st from Press 53! Cover art by Hedy Habra. Cover design by Paul Sizer
Available from Press 53 & for my international friends, from Amazon
Delighted that Live Encounters features two of my ekphrastic poems in their August issue!
MockingHeart Review features my poem, “Or Didn’t You Know It’s In That Opening And Closing That We Exist?” inspired by Icon by Remedios Varo, in its spring/summer issue.
The Ekphrastic Review features two of my poems in their June issue!
About Place: Dignity as an Endangered Species in the 21st Century features my ekphrastic poem, “Or Have You Ever Noticed Erasure Patterns Within Fractals?” (Spring 2019)
Verse Daily features “To Amal (Because Your Name Means Hope)”(May 6, 2019)
Interview by Shenlan Yu, “Hedy Habra: 孔子学院把中国带到了我家门口” about learning Tai Chi, Chinese Brush Painting, Calligraphy and Mandarin at Western Michigan University’s Confucius Institute.
Honored to be Poetry Guest Editor for Prime Number Magazine Issue 157!
The Bitter Oleander just published my poem, “Or How Do You Ever Cut Down to the Bare Essentials?” in their spring 2019 issue.
Nimrod International Journal: Voices of the Middle East and North Africa features “Thought it Still Appears to be a Dream” in their Spring 2019 issue.
Third Wednesday Magazine will feature my painting, Poet Under Pine, on the cover of its 2019 summer issue!
Third Wednesday Magazine features my ekphrastic poem, “Or Have You Ever Wondered Why She is Looking Back?” in its 2019 spring issue!
Honored that Collateral Damage Anthology Glass Lyre Press nominated my poem, “To Amal,” for the 2018 Pushcart Prize!
Honored that MockingHeart Review nominated my poem “Or Weren’t We Supposed To Remove Our Makeup At Night?” for the 2018 Pushcart Prize!
Honored that Riggwelter nominated my poem “Or How Did You Think She’d Rehearse Her Own Flight?” for the 2018 Pushcart Prize!
Thrilled that The Mantle nominated my poem “Or What Does a Tree Know About Aging” for the 2018 Best of the Net Anthology!
Honored that Peacock Journal nominated my poem, “Or Do Memories Go Through Our Children Like Thread Through A Needle,” as one of their 2018 Best of the Net selections!
Honored that my poem, “Meditations Over the Eye of Horus-Sight,“ is featured in the December Mega Issue of Live Encounters, amongst stellar writers!
Sukoon‘s 10th edition features two of my poems!
“Eating Pizza in a Renovated Hammam in Granada” and “I Had Never Seen a Dead Man Before.”
Delighted to have an Anima Methodi poem featured in the Anima Methodi Anthology, edited by Desmond Kon & Eric Valles, creators of this new poetic form!
My artwork, “Crane and Sunset” is on the cover of the Fall-Winter 2919 print issue of Tiferet, which also features two of my poems!
LEVURE LITTÉRAIRE 15, featuring 3 poems by Hedy Habra amongst 270 international artists and writers.
Under Brushstrokes featured on Snowflakes in a Blizzard!
Thanks to Darrel Laurent for the challenging interview!
Honored to be featured by ArabAmerica as one of 10 Remarkable Women in Arab American Prose
Delighted to see my Chinese Ink painting, “Black Rooster,” on the cover of Revisiones! 
Review of Fifth Wednesday Journal Special Immigration Issue by Leah Brundige–Hedy Habra co-editor
Thrilled that my poem, “The House in Aleppo that I Would Never Get to See,” was nominated by Fifth Wednesday Journal for a Pushcart Prize!
Honored that my poem, “The Dust of Legends,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Blue Lyra Review!
Live Encounters: October Issue: Hedy Habra ‘Mandala Series’
LEVURE LITTÉRAIRE 13 with 245 international authors and artists!
Read Hedy’s 3 poems in Levure Littéraire 13 and 3 poems in Levure Littéraire 10
Review of Mundos alternos y artísticos en Vargas Llosa by Jorge Chen Sham. Revista de Filología y Lingüística de la Universidad de Costa Rica 43, 1 (2017): 190-93
Sonora Review “Focal Ekphrastic: An Interview with Hedy Habra”
Valparaiso Poetry Review “The Keyhole,” by Hedy Habra
Hedy Habra “My Sacred Space, My Sacred Place,“ Chris Rice Cooper Blog Art & Humanity Framed in the Photo Feature Story
May 2017 Blue Heron Review Featured Author Hedy Habra
Review of Under Brushstrokes in Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices! Thanks to Lisa Sullivan for her insightful reading and to Editor, Ben Berman.
Review of Shuler’s Fearsome Foursome Event in Cultured GR, by Natalie Tomlin.
Review of Under Brushstrokes in Blue Fifth Review! “The Liquid Sentence in Hedy Habra’s Under Brushstrokes.” Thanks to Virginia Bell for her wonderful insights and to eds. Sam Rasnake and Bill Yarrow!
Review of Under Brushstrokes in Life and Legends. Thanks to Connie Post for her sensitive and intuitive reading and for Kalpna Singh-Chitnis for including it!
Review of Under Brushstrokes in Al Jadid Magazine Vol 21 No 72. “Hedy Habra’s Finely Woven World of Words.” Grateful to Mark Grimes for his great exegesis and for Elie Chelala for publishing it!
Publication of Habra’s critical essay “Modalidades de la imaginación erótica de Conversación en La Catedral a Los cuadernos de don Rigoberto” in Antípodas : Todo es literatura. Everything is Literature: Estudios Críticos sobre Mario Vargas Llosa IV. 2017, Roy Boland, Editor.
Linden Lane Magazine Spring Issue features two of my paintings and five poems in Spanish. 
PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINATIONS FOR POETRY:
- 2020 Spectrum Publishing nominated “Selling the House”
- 2018 Collateral Damage: Glass Lyre Press nominated “To Amal”
- 2018 MockingHeart Review nominated “Or Weren’t We Supposed To Remove Our Makeup At Night?”
- 2018 Riggwelter nominated “Or How Did You Think She’d Rehearse Her Own Flight?”
- 2017 The Aeolian Harp Series Anthology Vol3 (Glass Lyre Pyre) nominated “The Taste of the Earth”
- 2017 Blue Lyra Review nominated “The Dust of Legends”
- 2017 Fifth Wednesday Journal nominated “The House in Aleppo I Would Never Get to See”
- 2016 Peacock Journal: Beauty First nominated “Deeper Than Tattoo”
- 2016 World Literature Today nominated: “How Much of Yourself Remains Within the Walls of a Home” and “A Bird’s Song, Unraveled”
- 2016 Pirene’s Fountain nominated “Visiting my Mother in Montreal”
BEST OF THE NET NOMINATIONS FOR POETRY & SMALL FICTION:
- 2018 Peacock Journal nominated “Or Do Memories Go Through Our Children Like Thread Through A Needle?”
- 2018 The Mantle nominated “Or What Does a Tree Know About Aging.”
- 2016 Change Seven Magazine nominated “Shipwrecked” from Under Brushstrokes
- 2016 Press 53 nominated “The Apple of Granada” from Under Brushstrokes.
Meet Hedy
Hedy Habra is a poet and essayist, of Lebanese origin, born and raised in Heliopolis, Egypt. She teaches Spanish at Western Michigan University where she obtained her Ph.D. in Spanish Literature. Her creative writing and critical studies have appeared in numerous literary magazines.
We hope you enjoy navigating the site to learn more about the person, the work, and the passion of Hedy Habra.
