Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Hourglass Procedure” by Hajer Mirwali, from Revolutions (Talonbooks, 2025), shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Due to its formatting, this poem is only available as an image.

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Hourglass Procedure

By Hajer Mirwali

From Revolutions

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Copyright © Hajer Mirwali

From Revolutions (Talonbooks, 2025), shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.

Hajer Mirwali is a Palestinian and Iraqi writer living in Toronto. Her first book, Revolutions (Talonbooks, 2025) — a collection of poetry on shame, pleasure, and Arab Muslim girlhood — is a finalist for the 2026 Trillium Book Award for Poetry. Two poems from the collection also appear in an anthology of Palestinian poetry called Heaven Looks Like Us (Haymarket Books, 2025). Hajer’s work has been published in The Ex-Puritan, Brick Magazine, Room Magazine, and Joyland. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph, and a BA in Creative Writing from York University.

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