Where do you live? is a bilingual collection of collaborative epistolary poems between Iraqi poet Dr. Hanaa Ahmad Jabr (writing in Arabic) and American poet Jennifer Jean (writing in English), published earlier this year. Bridging language and borders, the collection begins and ends with the titular question, as two poets living in different countries exchange their “anger / at the way things are when they should be / better” with “one eye open / staring at the ruins of the old city,” while the “other eye is closed / hiding dreadful war scenes.” In this interview, I spoke with both poets on their collaboration, the revelations that come with the letter-writing form, and how literature serves to bridge distances.
Tiffany Troy (TT): The title of this collection is also that of the poems that begin and end the collection, and it is a provocative question because “Where do you live?” is similar yet completely distinct from “Where are you from?”. Here, where one lives becomes the space that one wants to embody. Can you speak to the decision to start the collection with the eponymous poem?
Hanaa Ahmad Jabr (HAJ): Every poem Where do you live? carries (whether directly or indirectly) an answer to that very question. When we chose this title for both my and Jennifer’s poem, it was a poetic decision, but also one that reflected deep reality; poetic, because the question reaches beyond mere geography, asking not only about place but also about the very essence of living—and reality, because between these two poems lies a rich, vivid life: one woven with memories, dreams, longing, exile, homeland, love, war, family, and friends. That’s why the collection had to open with “Where Do You Live?” for the English reader and close with “أين تعيش؟” for the Arabic reader.
Jennifer Jean (JJ): Since every poem appears in both languages, we spoke about the book being read from left to right for English readers, and also from right to left for Arabic readers. We even asked Arrowsmith Press to create two covers, one cover in English and—on what would be “the back” in America—another cover in Arabic. When I was a kid, these things were known as “flip books,” but the press wasn’t able to grant our wish due to technical difficulties. What remains of this wish is the placement of these title poems. The query in the title still opens and closes our “conversation in poems,” no matter the reader’s home language. Now that I think about it, these two poems are the furthest apart, but both explore the hometown of the heart and express the comfort of our conversations. As Hanaa says: “We are the two eyes together . . . forever.”
TT: In the epistolary-poetic tradition, prominent examples include Paul Celan and Nelly Sachs, Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, but in those relationships, the correspondence takes the form of letters rather than lyric poems. Can you speak about how you first embarked on the collaborative process, and how the need to translate back and forth added layers to that lyrical discourse?
HAJ: The idea was never just to exchange poetic letters but to share a single life, with all its cultural layers, memories, dreams, places, and shifting time. Each of us carries within her not one voice, but many: not a single story but an entire tapestry woven of women, histories, and pivotal cultural moments in her country. Through these poems, we became mothers, children, lovers, friends, even butterflies!
That’s why this collaboration, as I previously mentioned, held both artistic and real-life weight. There is a quiet thrill in crafting a poetic reply to each letter, but in truth, we didn’t write those lyrical dialogues. They wrote us, then spilled into the world, raw and unfiltered. Our poems grew wings, and now, here we are, giddy with flight.
JJ: We’re both members of the Her Story Is collective, which brings Iraqi and American women artists together for collaboration and friendship. As our primary art is poetry, a poetic exchange made sense for me and Hanaa. We decided on a loose guideline: to write or respond to each other while generally addressing the question posed by the title of the book.
I considered letting myself be heavily influenced by the awareness that my work would be translated and would be read by an audience unfamiliar with my culture and poetic tradition, but ultimately, though it felt risky by virtue of defamiliarization, I decided to lay this awareness aside and speak freely and specifically to Hanaa based on our Zoom calls and WhatsApp interactions. I let myself understand that Hanaa is not an idea, nor a faceless mass of present, future, or in any way distant readers. I had concrete things to say to her, conversations to continue or to reflect on. Because of this, my usual writing tics didn’t work, and therefore a voice that was new to me emerged—and it wasn’t my own voice entirely, because when I read our book now, I still discover layers of meaning and connection that I wonder about. I wonder who this voice and these meanings are meant for—and if by aiming my communication at Hanaa, my words may have been better able to reach our faceless, though not heartless, readers.
TT: The way in which dialogue writes itself into the lyric form is inspiring, especially in the context of cross-cultural exchange; for example, the “war” being referenced in America/Iraq and motherhood take on completely different dimensions and resonances.
How does translation add to this collaborative process within the context of the Her Story Is collective? There are two co-translators, Wadaq Qais and Tamara Al-Attiya. What was their role in this process?
HAJ: Translation, without a doubt, has played a vital role in this collaboration. Each translator read the poem in its original language, internalized it, then consulted either me or Jennifer when a specific word or poetic image raised questions. Both translators brought their own refined sensibilities to the process, carefully selecting each word to carry the idea across with precision.
JJ: Working with Wadaq and Tamara was a delight—especially Wadaq, who is quite young and deeply curious about the English language. At the same time, working with them was a constant reminder of the various distances between me and Hanaa: physical distance, as well as cultural and linguistic. However, because the goal of the Her Story Is collective is to bridge these divides, I’m happy to report that when each poem was finally completed, I also felt our closeness. Our creation processes, our view of the play of egos in the poetry world, our poetry beginnings, and our hopes for our own poetic legacies are quite similar—and I think our similarities come through in the book as a whole.
TT: Yes, I feel the resonance between both of your views of poetry as an imperative to let, as you say, “light into a wound from which boundless gasps ooze,” to “see into the niches and nooks of each other’s faces.”
Has this collection’s poetic form aligned with or departed from poetic forms that you both are familiar with?
HAJ: Yes, it’s aligned with my usual approach in poetry—both in theory and practice—regarding the prose poem, but it has also been different. Here, I was translating life itself, each poem being written in the raw present, each a reply to another, a poem crossing borders of language and culture. I loved this poetic experiment, so rich with vital and intimate details of life.
JJ: Sustaining a theme is not unfamiliar to me—my collection Object Lesson was a “project” book exploring issues related to sex-trafficking in America. And, generally, I’ve always written the kind of free verse lyrics and lyric-narratives that appear in my book with Hanaa. Just prior to beginning our book, I began to impose a few minor formal constraints on my free verse, such as a double American sonnet structure. Where do you live? showcases many of these constraints. Besides that, my content in the book is a bit more raw because of the immediacy of the project and because of the focused emotion that comes with writing towards an individual.
TT: That rawness is felt in the proximity of each speaker to the other throughout the collection, I feel. How did you collectively land upon the sequencing of the poems in this collection?
HAJ: We didn’t arrange it chronologically but rather poetically—guided by the pulse of a shared idea. Sometimes that idea would whisper in the titles themselves. And of course, we paid special attention to the poems entitled “Where Do You Live?”. In the book, we placed Jennifer’s poem on the right (for the English eyes) and mine on the left (for the Arabic eyes).
JJ: The poems are not in the order that they were produced—though, if the poems seemed or were in direct response to each other, then we nestled them together. The best explanation is that the whole organizing process was collaboratively intuitive.
TT: For poets who are interested in collaboration, what is one challenge or revelation you have had through the making of this collection?
HAJ: This journey demanded immense patience and communication across social media, and also through the intermediary of a translator, which required its own kind of patience. And the poetry itself also asked the same of us.
There was also a keen responsibility, one we met with both flexibility and grit. And in the end, I believe we proved worthy of it.
JJ: Collaboration entails patience and inexhaustible interest in the project. Just like any good relationship!
TT: What are you working on today?
HAJ: Today, I’m immersed in writing an academic piece on literary criticism, while also putting the final touches on a young adult travel novel.
JJ: I’ve finished editing Other Paths for Shahrazad: A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by Arab Women, and I’m preparing for its release from Tupelo Press in January 2026. Hanaa is an associate editor for that book. Otherwise, the poems that didn’t make it into Where do you live? have become the beginning of a new collection exploring forgiveness. I’m also working on a memoir in essays and I’m shopping around a completed draft of a poetry collection which explores my years immediately after exiting foster care.
TT: Are there any closing thoughts that you would like to share with the readers of the world?
HAJ: I want to share the wars I’ve lived through with the entire world. In every detail, with all of their terror, hope, heartbreak, slow deaths, and fleeting victories. To make sure my voice is still breathing.
JJ: I hope readers are inspired by our relationship and will go on to create collaborative projects of their own that bridge dark divides. I hope readers come to understand the lasting legacy of war and with this understanding, aim to avoid it. I also hope that readers of English understand what a great poet Hanaa is and that they will seek out her work! To this end, I hope to continue to co-translate her work.
Hanaa Ahmad Jabr’s interview responses are translated from Arabic to English by Wadaq Qais.
Dr. Hanaa Ahmad Jabr was born in Mosul, Iraq. She is a prize-winning poet and short story writer who has participated in critical conferences and international poetry festivals. She has a PhD of Philosophy in Arabic Literature. Her books include the poetry collections I Draw My Sorrow from His Collar, and two books of criticism: The Dialectic of Poetry and Prose in Modernist Poetry and The Poetics of the Prose Poem. Additionally, she’s released a children’s book: Sultan and Shanidar. Hanaa teaches at the University of Mosul.
Jennifer Jean’s poetry collections include VOZ, Object Lesson, and The Fool. Her resource book is Object Lesson: a Guide to Writing Poetry, and she’s the editor of the forthcoming anthology Other Paths for Shahrazad: A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by Arab Women (Tupelo Press, 2026). Her work appears in POETRY Magazine, Rattle Magazine, On the Seawall, The Common, the Los Angeles Review, on The Slowdown Podcast, and in the Academy of American Poets “Poem-a-Day” series. She’s received honors from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, the Mass Cultural Council, and the Women’s Federation for World Peace. Jennifer is an organizer for the Her Story Is collective, a faculty member at Solstice MFA, and a senior program manager at the Fine Arts Work Center.
Tiffany Troy is the author of Dominus (BlazeVOX [books]) and the chapbook When Ilium Burns (Bottlecap Press). She translated Catalina Vergara’s diamonds & rust (Toad Press International Chapbook Series). She is Managing Editor at Tupelo Quarterly, Associate Editor of Tupelo Press, Book Review Co-Editor at The Los Angeles Review, Assistant Poetry Editor at Asymptote, and Co-Editor of Matter.
*****
Read more on the Asymptote blog: