Dear poets and poetry lovers,
Please join us for the next Del Ray Poetry Reading at St. Elmo’s Coffee Shop (2300 Mt. Vernon Ave.) on Friday, Nov. 6 from 7-9 PM. Our featured poet is former Alexandria Poet Laureate Zeina Azzam. After her performance, we’ll open the mic for all to read their poems. Our theme this month is “What is Home?” We hope to see you there.
Your co-hosts,
Neal Learner and Wendi Kaplan
About Zeina Azzam
Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, writer, editor, and community activist. She was selected as the Poet Laureate of the City of Alexandria, Virginia, in April 2022 and served in this position for three years, until April 2025. Her full-length poetry collection, Some Things Never Leave You, was published in 2023 by Tiger Bark Press. Zeina's chapbook, Bayna Bayna, In-Between, was published in 2021 by The Poetry Box, which nominated one of her poems ("Traveling with the Speed of Light") for the Pushcart Prize. In November 2022, The KNOT Magazine also nominated Zeina's poem, "Death in War," for a Pushcart. The City of Alexandria also published a collection of her poems in 2025 titled Poems for Alexandria.
Zeina's poetry appears in a number of literary journals including Prairie Schooner, The Massachusetts Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Dodge Magazine, Pleiades, Plume, ONE ART, Vox Populi, Rusted Radishes, Mizna, Sukoon, Passager, Gyroscope, Barzakh, Pensive Journal, Split This Rock, Streetlight Magazine, Cutleaf Journal, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and Voice Male. In addition, Zeina’s poems are published in anthologies and edited volumes such as Enemy of the Sun: Poems of Palestinian Resistance, Bettering American Poetry, Making Mirrors: Writing/Righting by and for Refugees, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume IV: Virginia, The Black River: Death Poems, Resilient Kitchens: American Immigrant Cooking in a Time of Crisis, Making Levantine Cuisine: Modern Foodways of the Eastern Mediterranean, Tales from Six Feet Apart, and Gaza Unsilenced. Her poem, “You Birth the Seeds,” was set as a choral piece by renowned composer Melissa Dunphy. Another esteemed composer, Ep Wesseling (from The Netherlands), has created choral music based on four of Zeina's poems: "Write My Name," "20,000 Children Killed in Gaza," "No Longer," and "Together." (These "Four Songs for Gaza" are available for a free download online.)
In addition to participating regularly in poetry readings locally and nationally, Zeina serves as a mentor for We Are Not Numbers, a writing program for youth in Gaza, and is currently poetry editor for WANN. She volunteers for humanitarian organizations that support Palestinian development. Zeina is also active in Grassroots Alexandria, a local group that advocates for the civil rights of vulnerable communities in Alexandria, Virginia, where she lives. Her educational background includes an M.A. in Arabic language and literature from Georgetown University, an M.A. in sociology from George Mason University, and a B.A. in psychology from Vassar College.