Morning Lit

Dr. Omar Sabbagh is a widely published poet and critic. His work has appeared in, amongst others, Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, The London Magazine, Lighthouse, and Envoi. He has published several poetry collections with Cinnamon Press, including, But It Was an Important Failure and To the Middle of Love, as well as this debut fiction novella, Via Negativa — a parable of exile. His next collection with Cinnamon will be Morning Lit: Portals After Alia will be published in Spring 2022. He has published critical essays on a number of writers, including George Eliot, Lawrence Durrell, and Henry Miller. Omar has a PhD in English Literature from King’s College London and is presently an Assistant Professor in English at the American University in Dubai.

In his most personal collection yet, Omar Sabbagh brings a concentrated gaze to bear on turbulent emotions. Morning Lit is a deep and sustained exploration of fatherhood, marriage and bereavement: of love and its shadow side, which is loss. Crammed with symbolism, it is a work of maturity both emotional and poetic. — Fiona Sampson; Omar Sabbagh offers his readers deeply contemplative—and even more deeply felt—windows into both the seemingly relentless tensions and nearly transcendent joys of family life. Sabbagh masterfully demonstrates the full range of his poetic voice and craftsmanship, choosing most often to approach profound tribulation and self-interrogation within precisely contained rhymes and rhythms while bursting effusively into wholly charming exaltations in celebration of his daughter. Here, nothing is valued more than kindness, yet, with its abundant references to philosophy, psychology, history, and economic theory, Morning Lit: Portals After Alia reminds us that being present and open to the struggles and wonders of our own lives requires every resource of mind and heart we have. — Kathleen Graber, author of The River Twice; Here is a paean to fatherhood in all its terrifying joy and vulnerability. It evokes the gratitude of the born-again parent, the wonder of being programmed ‘to love unconditionally’, of being compelled to ‘agree, and agree, and agree’, and of acknowledging that one’s love is now one’s ‘only, final fear’. Luminous, tender and gently delirious, Omar Sabbagh’s poems celebrate an awakening into a new sacredness. — Arundhathi Subramaniam; Bursting with thoughtful and ebullient verse [that] spills-over with warmth and joy at the birth of a daughter, Alia. Omar Sabbagh adds his distinctive voice to the literature of fatherhood. — Amy Wack, Poetry Editor, Seren Books