Using his hands to write poetry

Ameen-Storm Abo-Hamzy, 51, has been many things over the years: son, brother, an owner of The Collin’s Diner with his family in North Canaan, Army paratrooper (U.S. Infantry 4th Ranger Battalion), wrestling coach at Housatonic Valley Regional High School for 13 years (“While I was coaching, we took five wrestlers to the state open tournament for five years in a row; that had never been done before”). He’s been a hairdresser at the iconic Oribe salon in New York City. He speaks seven languages. He’s a sixth-generation American of Lebanese descent. 

If you know Abo-Hamzy, though, you know that above all he is a poet and a teacher of poetry.

“I’ve been writing poetry since I was 3 or 4 years old,” he said. 

He always writes in longhand, never on a computer.

“I can’t compose on a computer, it interferes with my muse’s frequency. Sometimes it clears my head, sometimes it doesn’t,” he said of writing. “I have no choice. It has to be written. I get it out of my brain and onto the page. It’s art. Artists don’t choose to do art; it just comes.”

Sometimes it needs a little help to come along, and Abo-Hamzy is there to offer that aid to young artists. One of his students, Gabrielle Konzika, was just named the Connecticut state champion of the Poetry Out Loud competition (on March 4), and will represent the state in Washington, D.C., for the national championships at the end of April.

Abo-Hamzy is a passionate person. You can see it just by looking at him, and certainly you can feel it in conversation with him. He appreciates the passion in others too; that’s what inspired him to write “Her Hands,” about two farming women,  Susan Sellew from Monterey, Mass., and Joanie Lamothe of Rustling Wind Stables in Falls Village.