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The Twenty-Ninth Year: Poems
In Islamic and Western tradition, age twenty-nine is a milestone, a year of transformation and upheaval.
For Hala Alyan, this is a year in which the past—memories of family members, old friends and past lovers, the heat of another land, another language, a different faith—winds itself around the present. Hala's ever-shifting, subversive verse sifts together and through different forms of forced displacement and the tolls they take on mind and body. Poems leap from war-torn cities in the Middle East, to an Oklahoma Olive Garden, a Brooklyn brownstone; from alcoholism to recovery; from a single woman to a wife. This collection summons breathtaking chaos, one that seeps into the bones of these odes, the shape of these elegies.
A vivid catalog of trauma, heartache, loneliness, and joy, The Twenty-Ninth Year is an education in looking for home and self in the space between disparate identities.
For Hala Alyan, this is a year in which the past—memories of family members, old friends and past lovers, the heat of another land, another language, a different faith—winds itself around the present. Hala's ever-shifting, subversive verse sifts together and through different forms of forced displacement and the tolls they take on mind and body. Poems leap from war-torn cities in the Middle East, to an Oklahoma Olive Garden, a Brooklyn brownstone; from alcoholism to recovery; from a single woman to a wife. This collection summons breathtaking chaos, one that seeps into the bones of these odes, the shape of these elegies.
A vivid catalog of trauma, heartache, loneliness, and joy, The Twenty-Ninth Year is an education in looking for home and self in the space between disparate identities.
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 29, 2019
58 people are currently reading
3419 people want to read
About the author
Hala Alyan
18 books1,149 followersHala Alyan was born in Carbondale, Illinois, and grew up in Kuwait, Oklahoma, Texas, Maine, and Lebanon. She earned a BA from the American University of Beirut and an MA from Columbia University. While completing her doctorate in clinical psychology from Rutgers University, she specialized in trauma and addiction work with various populations.
Her memoir, I'll Tell You When I'm Home is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in June 2025.
She has published two novels, her debut Salt Houses (2017), is the winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, and her second novel, The Arsonists' City (2021).
Alyan's poetry collections include Atrium (2012), winner of the 2013 Arab American Book Award in Poetry; Four Cities (2015); Hijra (2016), winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry; The Twenty-Ninth Year (2019); and The Moon That Turns You Back (2024).
She co-edited the poetry anthology We Call to the Eye & the Night: Love Poems by Writers of Arab Heritage (2023) with poet Zeina Hashem Beck.
Alyan has also been awarded a Lannan Foundation fellowship and her poems have appeared in numerous journals and literary magazines including The New Yorker, The Academy of American Poets, Guernica, Jewish Currents,The New York Times Book Review, Prairie Schooner and Colorado Review.
Alyan is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Applied Psychology at NYU. She resides in Brooklyn with her family.
Her memoir, I'll Tell You When I'm Home is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in June 2025.
She has published two novels, her debut Salt Houses (2017), is the winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, and her second novel, The Arsonists' City (2021).
Alyan's poetry collections include Atrium (2012), winner of the 2013 Arab American Book Award in Poetry; Four Cities (2015); Hijra (2016), winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry; The Twenty-Ninth Year (2019); and The Moon That Turns You Back (2024).
She co-edited the poetry anthology We Call to the Eye & the Night: Love Poems by Writers of Arab Heritage (2023) with poet Zeina Hashem Beck.
Alyan has also been awarded a Lannan Foundation fellowship and her poems have appeared in numerous journals and literary magazines including The New Yorker, The Academy of American Poets, Guernica, Jewish Currents,The New York Times Book Review, Prairie Schooner and Colorado Review.
Alyan is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Applied Psychology at NYU. She resides in Brooklyn with her family.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 165 reviews
April 14, 2019
There were a few good lines here, but mostly this struck me as inauthentic. Alyan seems more focused on making sure the reader sees her in a certain way than on getting at anything really honest. But for all I know maybe it's just the best she can do right now. Either way, I'm relieved to be done.
February 24, 2019
From the publisher blurb: "In Islamic and Western tradition, age twenty-nine is a milestone, a year of transformation and upheaval."
It's fitting that these poems all deal with the feeling of place and belonging, examining whether or not the poet is happy or where she wants to be, and who she wants to be with. Memories and dreams intertwine with the emotions of the moment, and a struggle with sobriety, and I really took my time to read and reread these poems.
Some of my highlights:
Armadillo
"...The Doha villa still makes me cry and it takes a decade to understand what my parents always knew: all the love in the world won't buy you what you wanted in the first place...."
You're Not a Girl in a Movie
"...there's always a dark darker than the dark you know."
Step Eight: Make Amends
"...Scream that he is an asshole, that there are girls you'd
be kissing if it weren't for him, that you are trying to
Pottery Barn your way to quiet...."
The Honest Wife
"...I lied and said I loved Philadelphia, but really I just loved the idea of a place so old it only knew how to tell the truth."
I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The book came out January 29, 2019. I had previously read and really liked the novel Salt Houses, so I was very interested in the poems.
It's fitting that these poems all deal with the feeling of place and belonging, examining whether or not the poet is happy or where she wants to be, and who she wants to be with. Memories and dreams intertwine with the emotions of the moment, and a struggle with sobriety, and I really took my time to read and reread these poems.
Some of my highlights:
Armadillo
"...The Doha villa still makes me cry and it takes a decade to understand what my parents always knew: all the love in the world won't buy you what you wanted in the first place...."
You're Not a Girl in a Movie
"...there's always a dark darker than the dark you know."
Step Eight: Make Amends
"...Scream that he is an asshole, that there are girls you'd
be kissing if it weren't for him, that you are trying to
Pottery Barn your way to quiet...."
The Honest Wife
"...I lied and said I loved Philadelphia, but really I just loved the idea of a place so old it only knew how to tell the truth."
I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The book came out January 29, 2019. I had previously read and really liked the novel Salt Houses, so I was very interested in the poems.
October 24, 2023
I couldn’t forgive him, so I apologized instead
September 22, 2024
hala alyan, u have mastered the art of saying so much with so little. a study in linguistic economy. even the repeat motifs/phrases/words delight me endlessly. a master of nostalgia and travel and torment!!!!!!!!!
August 6, 2018
I was so entranced by the idea that the 29th year is something particularly transformative in the Islamic culture. Being in my 29th year myself, I wanted to read something that would change my classic American pseudo-dramatic perception--29 is on the cusp of 30, a huge change of life's dynamic, especially for a woman. What I received from this collection was more unexpected--I learned about Hala Alyan. I learned about her journey figuratively around the earth, from Greece to Texas and almost everywhere in between. Hala knits so many unassumingly disconnected fragments together to display a descriptive tapestry of her questioning childhood, her screaming young adulthood, from alcoholism and drug use to family duty and marriage. She takes stereotypes and unwinds them in front of you.
Hala's poetry reminds me of my own teen years. Though I'm a 29 year old white agnostic female born and raised in America, I felt much of her path through adolescence as if it were my own. And then there were moments where I knew I was learning to see through eyes that have witnessed so much more than I have, through a woman who has lived and endured things I could never understand, and I appreciated the difference. I appreciated that I may never understand, but I could treasure the glimpse Hala Alyan gave me.
I very intimately enjoyed Hala Alyan's The Twenty-Ninth Year, though it might not be a read for everyone.
Thanks to Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Hala's poetry reminds me of my own teen years. Though I'm a 29 year old white agnostic female born and raised in America, I felt much of her path through adolescence as if it were my own. And then there were moments where I knew I was learning to see through eyes that have witnessed so much more than I have, through a woman who has lived and endured things I could never understand, and I appreciated the difference. I appreciated that I may never understand, but I could treasure the glimpse Hala Alyan gave me.
I very intimately enjoyed Hala Alyan's The Twenty-Ninth Year, though it might not be a read for everyone.
Thanks to Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
May 27, 2021
If even a tenth of these poems are autobiographical, the poet has done more in just under three decades than I can imagine packing into a lifetime.
Questions of factuality aside, Alyan is a skilled, powerful poet, enough to make me love this book even though youthful self absorption and narratives by immigrants of relative privilege are a tough sell for me.
Despite the showy Bukowski-as-an-Arab-girl moments, this is definitely a poignant, heady collection with great emotional range. I read it in one night, and there's a chance I might revise my opinion on subsequent readings.
Questions of factuality aside, Alyan is a skilled, powerful poet, enough to make me love this book even though youthful self absorption and narratives by immigrants of relative privilege are a tough sell for me.
Despite the showy Bukowski-as-an-Arab-girl moments, this is definitely a poignant, heady collection with great emotional range. I read it in one night, and there's a chance I might revise my opinion on subsequent readings.
March 21, 2019
Alyan is a Palestinian American poet and novelist. I read and enjoyed her last novel, Salt Houses and was pleasantly surprised to hear she is a poet too. This is a solid collection, much of it, about the immigrant experience.
December 14, 2023
This was good, but wasn't my favorite by Hala. Not her best work in my opinion, especially after reading her book "You're not a girl in a movie" which was FANTASTIC.
October 1, 2024
I loved Alyan’s novel, Salt Houses and a follow her activism and non fiction writing via her Instagram so, I wanted to try her poetry. Political and personal poems chronicling her young adulthood, by her twenty ninth year she's experienced a lot. Angry, frustrated, disillusioned, melancholic.
I'm Not Speaking First "I want to love something without having to apologize for it."
Gospel:Diaspora "sometimes I wear a cowboy hat sometimes I wear a kaffiyeh"
I'm Not Speaking First "I want to love something without having to apologize for it."
Gospel:Diaspora "sometimes I wear a cowboy hat sometimes I wear a kaffiyeh"
August 29, 2020
(c/p from my review on TheStoryGraph) 3.5 Some of these poems were great but most of them were just not at all my thing. I'm aware that I'm very picky about my poetry so take this review with a grain of salt. I mostly just found a lot of this to be mediocre work, the kind that you'd find in a beginning poetry class. It isn't that it is horrible, it's perfectly passable poetry. It is just nothing extraordinary, nothing new. Some of the poems were thought provoking and others simply weren't.
Read
August 8, 2021Alyan's exploration of violence, diaspora, despair, and love is lyrical and difficult, a beautiful, painful read. My full review is available here: https://essentiallyanerd.wordpress.co...
December 13, 2023
read books by palestinian authors on this global day of strike
January 1, 2024
Another beautiful collection this time centered around this transformative year in Islamic culture and Alyan's continued reflections on her life. This collection was a perfect example as to why Hala Alyan continues to be one of my favorite poets. Her collections are always ones that cause so much reflection, every bit of language used feels so intentional, and I find myself returning to her words often.
February 18, 2019
For whatever reason, reading this forwards didn’t work for me, so I read it backwards and the urgency landed much more. Absolutely fantastic poems. Highly recommend this collection, in any order you might want to read it.
June 2, 2021
i want to read everything again but i don't think i'd be able to without puking.
__
a few lines that won't leave my head:
"Here's what the biologist taught me in that whiskey bar: if your ancestor
dies in a mudslide, you learn to run. We inherit everything. Especially
questions." (The Honest Wife)
"We love / because it makes a mockery of our fathers" (Ordinary Scripture)
"In the city bombs peck the streets into a braille that we pretend we
cannot read." (Aleppo)
"Heaven is a long weekend. Heaven is a tornado siren canceling school. Heaven is pressed in a pleather booth at the Olive Garden, sipping Pepsi between my gapped teeth, listening to my father mispronounce his meal." (Oklahoma)
"I starved myself to starve my mother." (1999)
"It was still possible to move to California then, and I wrote that down
in the margin of a notebook —
California?, like I was trying it on, a floral sundress in the wrong weather." (You're Not a Girl in a Movie)
"I stole your name and at night, alone, I whisper it into the dark: the vowels none of my great-grandmothers could've said." (When I bit into the Plums the Ants Flooded Out)
"Marriage is sweeping the floors of a room you're not sure you want to / die in." (Gospel: Newlyweds)
"This is what your wedding vows meant by unalike:
He can kill the deer quietly.
You wake up everyone you know in America." (Step Eight: Make Amends)
"In Nashville, in Spain, on the back roads of Georgia, when you start the car engine, my first prayer is for you." (Wife in Reverse)
"There are men who sing to keep the sky from collapsing like a blue tent." (Heirloom)
__
a few lines that won't leave my head:
"Here's what the biologist taught me in that whiskey bar: if your ancestor
dies in a mudslide, you learn to run. We inherit everything. Especially
questions." (The Honest Wife)
"We love / because it makes a mockery of our fathers" (Ordinary Scripture)
"In the city bombs peck the streets into a braille that we pretend we
cannot read." (Aleppo)
"Heaven is a long weekend. Heaven is a tornado siren canceling school. Heaven is pressed in a pleather booth at the Olive Garden, sipping Pepsi between my gapped teeth, listening to my father mispronounce his meal." (Oklahoma)
"I starved myself to starve my mother." (1999)
"It was still possible to move to California then, and I wrote that down
in the margin of a notebook —
California?, like I was trying it on, a floral sundress in the wrong weather." (You're Not a Girl in a Movie)
"I stole your name and at night, alone, I whisper it into the dark: the vowels none of my great-grandmothers could've said." (When I bit into the Plums the Ants Flooded Out)
"Marriage is sweeping the floors of a room you're not sure you want to / die in." (Gospel: Newlyweds)
"This is what your wedding vows meant by unalike:
He can kill the deer quietly.
You wake up everyone you know in America." (Step Eight: Make Amends)
"In Nashville, in Spain, on the back roads of Georgia, when you start the car engine, my first prayer is for you." (Wife in Reverse)
"There are men who sing to keep the sky from collapsing like a blue tent." (Heirloom)
August 4, 2021
late start to the sealey challenge but hala alyan nails every single lyrical leap. a treasure trove of memorable lines in this book:
from truth -
"Hunger is hunger. I got drunk one night / and argued with the Pacific. I was twenty. I broke / into the bodies of men like a cartoon burglar. I wasn't twenty."
from gospel: rumi
"What is love if not falconry? Tugging the humble out of something wild."
from i'm not speaking first
"Nothing's Freudian anymore. A cigar's a cigar. I want to love something. / I want to love something without having to apologize for it."
from either i'm coming back or i'm not
"Eyes for snow. The longest day of winter wolfs the birds. Your love / is a love of hoofprints. The birds with their missing alphabet."
from step two: higher power
"This is how a year passed, with hundreds of lies, / like that midnight walk in the French countryside dark, / my sister giggling nervously, no streetlamp for miles, / one footstep after the other, and the only way out ahead."
from wife in reverse
"we use our bodies to catch light"
"I surrender myself like a ransacked city."
from ordinary scripture:
"In the end, we remake love over and over, like unwed atoms, / into forgery, into need, busying our hands with forks, unmade beds, / the magnolia trees, whatever quiet is the one we can bear."
from dear layal
"The last time I drank I spoke to the trees and they had your voice. They said it was too late to go back. My life glittered like drugstore nail polish."
from aleppo
"Mornings like this, I wish I never loved anyone. What it is to be a lucky city, a row of white houses strung with Christmas lights."
from truth -
"Hunger is hunger. I got drunk one night / and argued with the Pacific. I was twenty. I broke / into the bodies of men like a cartoon burglar. I wasn't twenty."
from gospel: rumi
"What is love if not falconry? Tugging the humble out of something wild."
from i'm not speaking first
"Nothing's Freudian anymore. A cigar's a cigar. I want to love something. / I want to love something without having to apologize for it."
from either i'm coming back or i'm not
"Eyes for snow. The longest day of winter wolfs the birds. Your love / is a love of hoofprints. The birds with their missing alphabet."
from step two: higher power
"This is how a year passed, with hundreds of lies, / like that midnight walk in the French countryside dark, / my sister giggling nervously, no streetlamp for miles, / one footstep after the other, and the only way out ahead."
from wife in reverse
"we use our bodies to catch light"
"I surrender myself like a ransacked city."
from ordinary scripture:
"In the end, we remake love over and over, like unwed atoms, / into forgery, into need, busying our hands with forks, unmade beds, / the magnolia trees, whatever quiet is the one we can bear."
from dear layal
"The last time I drank I spoke to the trees and they had your voice. They said it was too late to go back. My life glittered like drugstore nail polish."
from aleppo
"Mornings like this, I wish I never loved anyone. What it is to be a lucky city, a row of white houses strung with Christmas lights."
December 6, 2023
“Everyone wants a rock bottom. Some Icarus shit. But the truth is some holes keep going, yawning, heady, one mistake becomes three: there’s always a dark darker than the dark you know.”
Hala Alyan’s The Twenty Ninth Year tells the story of transformation throughout different phases of life and the ways in which our memories of events can change over time.
Alyan is a Palestinian American writer and clinical psychologist who discusses trauma, sexual orientation, being a woman in this world, eating disorders, alcoholism, forced displacement and immigrant identity in a raw and painful but ultimately hopeful way.
I found myself trying to read between the lines at times to figure out what Alyan meant with a certain passage and then I took a step back and realized, this is the beauty of poetry; understanding some passages but not all, yet still being able to empathize with the writer.
Our understanding shaped by our own experiences and memories.
After reading a beautiful poetry collection like this one, I’m always left with a yearning to know more about the pain we’re glimpsing through a poem. Share all of your stories, I want to say to poets like Hala Alyan, I’ll carry them with me, too.
I’m excited to read more of Alyan’s writing, especially now that I got two of her novels from the library😍
*I don’t personally like rating poetry collections but for Goodreads author visibility purposes I have provided a star rating
Hala Alyan’s The Twenty Ninth Year tells the story of transformation throughout different phases of life and the ways in which our memories of events can change over time.
Alyan is a Palestinian American writer and clinical psychologist who discusses trauma, sexual orientation, being a woman in this world, eating disorders, alcoholism, forced displacement and immigrant identity in a raw and painful but ultimately hopeful way.
I found myself trying to read between the lines at times to figure out what Alyan meant with a certain passage and then I took a step back and realized, this is the beauty of poetry; understanding some passages but not all, yet still being able to empathize with the writer.
Our understanding shaped by our own experiences and memories.
After reading a beautiful poetry collection like this one, I’m always left with a yearning to know more about the pain we’re glimpsing through a poem. Share all of your stories, I want to say to poets like Hala Alyan, I’ll carry them with me, too.
I’m excited to read more of Alyan’s writing, especially now that I got two of her novels from the library😍
*I don’t personally like rating poetry collections but for Goodreads author visibility purposes I have provided a star rating
Read
January 11, 2020My favorite poems in this collection were: "Oklahoma," "Not a Mosque," and "Instructions for a Wife."
"all the love in the world won't buy you what you want in the first place." (from "Armadillo" p.9)
"I've been working on the same joke for years. The punchline is you were
happy all along." (p.9)
"What do we do with heartache? Tow it." (p.9)
"Every wound reveals its own repair." (from "Gospel: Rumi," p.17)
"Everyone wants a rock bottom. Some Icarus shit." (from "You're Not a Girl in a Movie," p. 31)
"Marriage is sweeping the floors of a room you're not sure you want to die in." (from "Gospel: Newlyweds," p. 43)
"Recognizing the miracle becomes the miracle." (from "On the Death..." p. 72)
"Marry of burn; either way, you're transfiguring." (from "Thirty," p. 81)
"all the love in the world won't buy you what you want in the first place." (from "Armadillo" p.9)
"I've been working on the same joke for years. The punchline is you were
happy all along." (p.9)
"What do we do with heartache? Tow it." (p.9)
"Every wound reveals its own repair." (from "Gospel: Rumi," p.17)
"Everyone wants a rock bottom. Some Icarus shit." (from "You're Not a Girl in a Movie," p. 31)
"Marriage is sweeping the floors of a room you're not sure you want to die in." (from "Gospel: Newlyweds," p. 43)
"Recognizing the miracle becomes the miracle." (from "On the Death..." p. 72)
"Marry of burn; either way, you're transfiguring." (from "Thirty," p. 81)
December 22, 2023
I genuinely donʼt know how to critique poetry or persuade others to read it, but this book, written by a Palestinian author, is exceptional—itʼs like a blazing fire. It encapsulates various themes presented in a diary-like format turned into a published book, featuring impactful and rebellious poems that left me in awe. The authorʼs distinctive and playful delivery of these poetries allows me to vividly hear her voice, even without knowing what she sounds like. I believe these are qualities that define a truly excellent poetry book.
While I may not resonate with every poem in the collection, I can confidently affirm itʼs worth your time. I think, especially this December, all we need is a tiny read (by a Palestinian author too!) to finish our year. 🎄
While I may not resonate with every poem in the collection, I can confidently affirm itʼs worth your time. I think, especially this December, all we need is a tiny read (by a Palestinian author too!) to finish our year. 🎄
June 15, 2022
came on here expecting to see like wide acclaim for this and am surprised by the number of reviews deeming it mediocre or outright trashing it; listening to the collection on audio was very soothing. everybody likes the line "What/ is love if not falconry? Tugging the humble out of something wild." (from "gospel: rumi") and I do too :)
and also: "once, a nurse asked me about god. I said I have held the engine of myself against my own ear and, dear miracle, I recognized the song." (from "step two: higher power")
and also: "once, a nurse asked me about god. I said I have held the engine of myself against my own ear and, dear miracle, I recognized the song." (from "step two: higher power")
February 26, 2019
I was impressed with the poetic nature of Alyan’s novel Salt Houses so I was really interested in her new poetry collection. The poems in The Twenty-Ninth Year twist around themselves, unable to find an anchor in the body, in addiction, in middle American, or in the Middle East. It reminded me quite a lot of Porochista Khakpour’s excellent memoir Sick with that feeling of displacement. I didn’t quite feel that all the poems went together as a collection, though they are all good.
January 3, 2024
It started out alright and got weird real quick. I am a lover of weird poetry don’t get me wrong and especially the dark stuff, but hers just felt off. I found myself saying “girl what?” about every other poem. I was not a fan. I am very sad to admit this as I thought it was gonna be good but it was not.
July 23, 2022
Meant to read this before my 30th birthday, missed it by a few days. I admit that I was hoping for more from Hala Alyan's poetry because her novel Salt Houses was so good. These poems were a little sad and personal, which is likely why I found them inaccessible. It seems like I prefer her prose to her poems.
July 29, 2024
Poetry is usually not my type of read, but I wanted to start reading more Palestinian authors!🇵🇸
One of themes I picked up and related to in certain level was the displacement of her family and not quite fitting in.
I will try to check out more of their works👍🏽
One of themes I picked up and related to in certain level was the displacement of her family and not quite fitting in.
I will try to check out more of their works👍🏽
January 6, 2024
The Twenty-Ninth Year is my first read of 2024!
I'm not usually a big poetry fan but this one felt different. It felt like actually being in the authors head and heart which felt really intimate. There was quite a bit in this that felt close to home for me which I think helped me feel connected to the author and this book.
Overall, I think it's a beautiful book and I'm glad I picked it up!
I'm not usually a big poetry fan but this one felt different. It felt like actually being in the authors head and heart which felt really intimate. There was quite a bit in this that felt close to home for me which I think helped me feel connected to the author and this book.
Overall, I think it's a beautiful book and I'm glad I picked it up!
July 15, 2024
absolutely gorgeous
May 31, 2024
a wonderful collection of poems from palestinian american poet hala alyam, the twenty ninth year spans subjects from immigration, girlhood, war, divorce, travel, belonging, and more. there were some really beautiful images presented, too! the reason this is a 4/5 for me is that there were a few too many repeated phrases for my taste that didn't add a lot to the work for me, but i think that's just a personal preference 🫶
April 19, 2019
A powerful collection of poetry by a Palestinian-American poet as she reflects on a year in her life. The poems highlight the theme of displacement, not just of being of Palestinian descent, but being a woman, being a lover and a wife, being American. Highly recommended.
July 29, 2021
3.5 stars
May 7, 2025
favs were “i’m not speaking first,” “instructions for a wife,” “when i bit into…”, “new year,” “transcend,” and “truth.”
Displaying 1 - 30 of 165 reviews