April Backlist Feature: Atrium

Hala Alyan’s debut novel Salt Houses will be released from Houghton Mifflin this May and has already received rave reviews across the board. From everyone at Three Rooms Press: Congratulations, Hala! And as April is National Poetry Month, we think it only fitting that we name Hala Alyan’s debut poetry collection Atrium our April Backlist Feature. For the entire month, this stunning collection will be on sale on our website, at a discounted price of $9.

Atrium is the winner of the 2013 Arab American Book Award for Poetry and famed poet Ilya Kaminsky raves, “Hala Alyan’s poems go after the sensual, to find the erotics in displacement, in memory, in the new land.”

Get your discounted copy here!

Book Details:

In her first full-length poetry collection, ATRIUM, Alyan traces lines of global issues in personal spaces with fervently original imagery and a fierce passion and intense intimacy that echoes long after initial reading. She transforms ancient mythology into modern day legend, taps into astrology and love with wild abandon, and anthropomorphizes cities and nations to bring the effects of war into crystal clear, heart-wrenching focus. Alyan was recently tapped as a finalist in the Nazim Himet Poetry Competition. In addition, ATRIUM was awarded to 2013 Arab-American Poetry Book of the Year by the Arab American National Museum. One of the poems included in this volume, “Maktoub,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Already in her young career, she has etched her mark on readers worldwide.

“Don’t miss the dazzling Hala Alyan. Wow. When she says ‘the poetry like a spear,’ she isn’t kidding.” —Naomi Shihab Nye

“Hala Alyan’s poems startle us with their beautiful, enigmatic images and capture us with their passionate engagement with the world. A powerful debut.”  —Chitra Divakaruni

“For all the stunning angularity in this vision, we do not doubt that what we are seeing and sensing here is a surprising, sharp-edged sense of the real, of a world that had been there all along, just waiting for this poet and these poems to reveal. Start to finish, these poems convey a singular vision and represent an important new voice in the international poetry arena.”  —Fred Marchant

“Atrium is a formidable volume: irreverent, clever, hyper-erudite and laugh-out-loud funny, with moments of arresting darkness and disturbing intensity to boot. Whether it’s Greek mythology, nightclub culture, obscene sex acts or Beirut, there is scarcely one subject in these 88 pages to which Alyan doesn’t bring fierce originality, feeling and flair.” —Alex Rowell, Now Lebanon

ATRIUM
by Hala Alyan
Poetry; 104 pages; $15.00
ISBN 978-0983581383 (trade paper)
Publication date: May 23, 2012