why an author writes to a guy holding a fish Poems

A story in verse chronicling the misadventures of a recently divorced Lebanese woman dating in America.
 
Laila Halaby’s second collection of poetry, why an author writes to a guy holding a fish is a story in verse. This honest, sensual, and often funny series of narrative poems chronicles the author’s decision to leave her two-decades-long relationship with her Palestinian husband. Halaby suddenly finds herself in the world of American dating where she searches for idealized love and genuine connection. Always treated as an “other” and having never dated a white man or an American before, Halaby writes about misadventures and heartbreak amid misread cues and lost nuances. Halaby reassesses her role as a woman, a mother, and a writer, and she learns how to dispense with labels and imagined expectations. In the process, she becomes reacquainted with her womanhood and power.
 

Laila Halaby was born in Beirut, Lebanon, to a Jordanian father and an American mother. She speaks four languages and was a Fulbright recipient. Her first novel, West of the Jordan, won the PEN Beyond Margins Award. She lives in Tucson, Arizona.