Winner of the 2019 CSU Poetry Center First Book Competition, selected by Brenda Hillman.
“Alen Hamza is a lyric poet of the first order, and Twice There Was a Country proves it with poems that alchemize past and present, personal and political, and grief and celebration in a way that leads to absolute stillness: ‘Silence has a mother in it and summer / refuses to move on.’ Throughout this volume, Hamza acts as an Adam of sorts, naming people and places and events with the exactitude that allows him to reclaim all that was ever lost: ‘Those under us are not dead. / They are dancers. We are the music.’ This is a brilliant debut.” —Jericho Brown
“With these darkly magnetic poems, Alen Hamza locates us in a world of political upheaval, personal dislocation and emotional fracture with a stunning balance and decorum. Reading Twice There Was a Country, I feel like I am being guided by a gentle firm hand while bombs are exploding around us, and surely this is one of the best things poetry can do.” —Dean Young
“Alen Hamza delicately shows us what happens to the internal psyche during exile and during its aftermath. There’s longing, displacement, absurdity, yes; but oh there’s also humor, surprise, and joy… Hamza acknowledges that ‘this age calls for chewing,’ and in this brilliant debut, he gives us ‘American-chewed words.’” —Javier Zamora
Alen Hamza immigrated to the United States from Bosnia-Herzegovina as a refugee at the age of fifteen. He has received fellowships from the Michener Center For Writers, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the University of Utah. His work has appeared in AGNI, Fence, and The Southern Review.
