Difficult

About the Collection:                                                        Difficult is a powerful meditation on exile, belonging, memory, and survival. Rewa Zeinati traverses the fractured landscapes of home and displacement, threading together the personal and the political with remarkable clarity and lyricism. Zeinati captures the weight of inherited grief, the quiet ache of nostalgia, and the dissonance of living between worlds. With piercing honesty, Zeinati explores identity, loss, how history inscribes itself onto the body, and how language, place, and war shape the self. From the streets of Dearborn to Beirut, from love to estrangement, from resilience to rage, each poem bears witness to the complexities of diaspora, the burden of memory, and the deep, often painful beauty of human connection. Difficult does not flinch. It demands to be heard. In its rawness, sharp wit, and stunning emotional depth, this collection is nothing short of necessary. 

Winner of the 2023 Diode Editions Chapbook Competition

Long List Finalist for the 2024 Julie Suk Award