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"These poems emerge directly from the experience of growing up and living in constant lockdown, and often under direct attack. Like Gaza itself, they are filled with bombs, rubble and the ever-present menace of surveillance drones policing a people unwelcome in their own land. They are also suffused with the smell of tea, roses in bloom, and the view of a sunset over the sea. Children are born, families continue traditions, students attend university, and libraries rise from the ruins as Palestinians go on about their lives, creating beauty and finding new ways to survive." -- Back cover.

"In this poetry debut, the first collection from any Gazan poet to be published in English, Mosab Abu Toha writes directly from the experience of growing up and living one's entire life in Gaza, the world's largest open-air prison camp. These poems emerge from Mosab's life under siege, first as a child, and then as a young father. A survivor of four brutal military attacks, he bears witness to a grinding cycle of destruction and assault, and yet, his poetry is infused with a profoundly universal humanity. In direct, vivid language, Abu Toha writes about being unwelcome in your own land, and even outside of it. He writes about being wounded by shrapnel at the age of 16, and then, a few years later, watching his home and his university get hit by Israeli warplanes in an attack that killed two of his close friends. Books are buried in rubble and electricity is often limited to 2 hours a day, and yet, families continue traditions, students attend university, and libraries rise from the ruins. These poems are filled with bombs and the ever-present menace of surveillance drones, as well as the smell of tea and roses in bloom, and the view of the sea at sunset. They present an almost surrealist/absurd viewpoint, based in a sense of rational and profound perplexity as to why these conditions continue, and how the people of Gaza go about their lives, even creating beauty as they find new ways to survive. Abu Toha writes, "It's not only about narrating things. It's about keeping things alive in us and for the generations to come. It's about how life crumbles, but also how it tries to stand." If we don't begin understanding what has happened there--and is still happening--Gaza might be our future as well. We all need to grasp what it means to still be human in such a situation"-- Provided by publisher.

Palestine A-Z

Leaving childhood behind

What is home?

My grandfather was a terrorist

On a starless night

Palestinian painter

My grandfather and home

Palestinian streets

In the war: you and houses

Searching for a new exit

Flying poem

Sobbing without sound

Discoveries

Hard exercise

Olympic hopscotch leap

Death before birth (DBB)

Rubble salary

Cold sweat

Tears

Deserted boat, dreaming

The wall and the clock

My city after what happened some time ago

Interlude

We love what we have

A litany for "one land"

We deserve a better death

Everyday meals during wars

US and THEM

silence of water

On Gaza seashore

Shrapnel looking for laughter

A voice from beneath

Seven fingers

Gone with the gunpowder

Palestinian sonnet

Ibrahim Abu Lughod and brother in Yaffa

Desert and exile

To Mahmoud Darwish

To Ghassan Kanafani

Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, and Theodor Adorno in Gaza

Displaced

To Ibrahim Kilani

The wounds

To my visa interviewer

Notebooks

A boy and his telescope

Things you may find hidden in my ear

Mosab

Memorize your dream

Forever homeless

A rose shoulders up

Interview ith the author.

Palestinian Arabs > Gaza Strip > Poetry.

Gaza > Poetry.

Gaza Strip > Gaza.