Deema K. Shehabi is a poet and editor. Her first book, Thirteen Departures from the Moon, is published by Press 53. She’s also co-author with Marilyn Hacker of Diaspo/Renga, a long, book-length poem that took place over four years and involves a call and response in the tradition of Japanese Renga.

Deema’s poems have been widely published in literary journals including The Kenyon Review, Literary Imagination, Pen America, The Poetry of Arab Women, So We Can Know, Letters to Palestine, and Inclined to Speak. She’s also co-editor with Beau Beausoleil of Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, for which she received NCBR’s recognition award. She is also the winner of the Nazim Hikmet poetry prize in 2018 and a recipient of Best of the Net nomination in 2021 as well as several Pushcart prize nominations, and her work has been translated into Arabic, French, and Farsi. 

Deema is Palestinian, born and raised in Kuwait.