Press
by Sara Elkamel, Four Way Review
September 2021
SE: "As an Arab woman myself, I found an incredible kinship with the speaker(s) in Jawhari’s poems. The opening poem, titled “condition”, piercingly captures the strain stepping into womanhood places on our relationship with our fathers; “when you had the sterile body of a child / you were loved by your father / now you’re grown”, she writes. For me, the erosion of the father’s unconditional love in tandem with the girl stepping into the body of a woman could not have been captured more poignantly, more resonantly."
by Lena Mahmoud, Sukoon Mag
Winter 2023
LM: "You have noted that your father was an early influence on your development as a poet, particularly his gift for memorizing and reciting verses that you say has earned him the moniker zaghoul. What impact do you believe memorization and recitation have on both the poet and the audience?"
by Anthony Thomas Lombardi, The Adroit Journal
April 2021
ATL: "I’m not interested in poems that seek answers—I don’t care about answers—I want more questions. Getting lost is a big part of that. If you don’t get lost in your work, you’re not discovering anything. If the poetry doesn’t bend toward some fundamental, or elemental, truth, what are you writing for?"
by Noor Hindi, The Rumpus
June 2021
NH: "There’s a specific image I think of when I consider the word “bint,” but in the cover image, she’s defiant, confident, and challenging. And so the tension between the cover image and the title is very much alive throughout the book, as she attempts to navigate her own girlhood and queerness outside of the term 'bint.'"
by Summer Farah, Vagabond City
April 2021
SF: "The collection is succinct and accessible with some of the most brilliant voltas I have had the pleasure of reading; it is apt that a book that explores girlhood and the transition out of it uses turns in the best way, with resolves leaving me breathless and inquisitive."