Renee Yaseen is a young artist, poet, and musician in her junior year at the University of Notre Dame. There, she studies International Economics and Arabic, with a minor in Philosophy, Politics, & Economics (PPE). Her op-eds have twice appeared in the Wall Street Journal’s “Future View” column, and her poetry has been published in Overachiever Magazine (2020) and Bluing the Blade (2020).
She wrote her first collection of poetry at age 10. It contained 100 poems and was appropriately titled “100 poems.” It received critical acclaim from both Mom and Dad. While she has only had moderate literary success since then, she hopes to some day complete another volume of poetry
or perhaps a novel. Until then, she will try to write about Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.
Renee is inspired by art, nature, her Syrian heritage, family, and spirituality – all of these present themselves as foci in her creative work. Ekphrastic poetry is a special favorite of hers. She likes knowing poetic history, reading poetry to understand different languages and cultures better, and learning about the (often interesting) lives of poets. And she believes poetry is best when it’s spoken aloud and spontaneously generated.
(Some of) her favorite writers are Wendell Berry, Mahmoud Darwish, Nikki Giovanni, Gibran Khalil Gibran, and Vera Brittain. Some poets she’d like to read more of include Rita Dove, Rick Barot, Billy Collins, Pablo Neruda, Anna Akhmatova, and Rumi.
Tempered Runes Press Contributions
“El Jaleo – John Singer Sargent” – Poem – Volume 1, Number 1 of Bluing the Blade