Currently the poetry editor for We Are Not Numbers, Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, writer, editor, and community activist. She was the poet laureate of the City of Alexandria, Virginia, for 2022-25 and has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. Zeina’s publications include the full-length poetry book, Some Things Never Leave You, the chapbook, Bayna Bayna, In-Between, the collection, Poems for Alexandria, and many poems in anthologies and literary journals including Prairie Schooner, Pleiades, Mizna, Massachusetts Review, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Enemy of the Sun: Poetry of Palestinian Resistance, Making Mirrors: Writing/Righting by and for Refugees, and Gaza Unsilenced.

For most of her professional career, Zeina worked in the fields of education and Middle East affairs, including 27 years at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. She also volunteers for Growing Palestine, which supports farmers in the West Bank, and Grassroots Alexandria, a local group that advocates for the civil rights of vulnerable communities. Zeina has served as a mentor for We Are Not Numbers since 2015. Visit her website.

Current as of July 2026