Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza - Softcover

Abu Toha, Mosab

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0872868605 ISBN 13: 9780872868601

Verlag: City Lights Books, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

Winner of the American Book Award, the Palestine Book Award and Arrowsmith Press's 2023 Derek Walcott Poetry Prize

National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry Finalist

“Written from his native Gaza, Abu Toha’s accomplished debut contrasts scenes of political violence with natural beauty."―The New York Times

In this poetry debut Mosab Abu Toha writes about his life under siege in Gaza, 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 inspired by a profound humanity.

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 rubble and the ever-present menace of surveillance drones policing a people unwelcome in their own land, and they are also suffused with the smell of tea, roses in bloom, and the view of the sea at sunset. 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.

Accompanied by an in-depth interview (conducted by Ammiel Alcalay) in which Abu Toha discusses life in Gaza, his family origins, and how he came to poetry.

Praise for Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear:

“Mosab Abu Toha is an astonishingly gifted young poet from Gaza, almost a seer with his eloquent lyrical vernacular … His poems break my heart and awaken it, at the same time. I feel I have been waiting for his work all my life.”―Naomi Shihab Nye

“Though forged in the bleak landscape of Gaza, he conjures a radiance that echoes Miłosz and Kabir. These poems are like flowers that grow out of bomb craters and Mosab Abu Toha is an astonishing talent to celebrate.”―Mary Karr

"Mosab Abu Toha's Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear arrives with such refreshing clarity and voice amidst a sea of immobilizing self-consciousness. It is no great feat to say a complicated thing in a complicated way, but here is a poet who says it plain: 'In Gaza, some of us cannot completely die.' Later, 'This is how we survived.' It’s remarkable. This is poetry of the highest order."―Kaveh Akbar

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, scholar, and librarian who was born in Gaza and has spent his life there. He is the founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s first English-language library. Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear is his debut book of poems. The collection won an American Book Award, a 2022 Palestine Book Award and was named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry, as well as the 2022 Walcott Poetry Prize.

In 2019-2020, Abu Toha was a Visiting Poet in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University.

Abu Toha is a columnist for Arrowsmith Press, and his writings from Gaza have also appeared in The Nation and Literary Hub. His poems have been published in Poetry, The Nation, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Poetry Daily, and the New York Review of Books, among others.

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My Grandfather was a Terrorist

My grandfather was a terrorist—
He tended to his field,
watered the roses in the courtyard,
smoked cigarettes with grandmother
on the yellowish seashore lying
like a prayer rug. 

My grandfather was a terrorist—
He picked oranges and lemons,
fished with brothers until noon,
sang a comforting song en route
to the farrier’s with his piebald horse.

My grandfather was a terrorist—
He made a cup of tea with milk,
sat on his verdant land, as soft as silk,
was incensed at the sun as it kept to blink. 

My grandfather was a terrorist—
He departed his house for the coming guests,
kept some water on the table, his best,
lest the guests die of thirst after their conquest. 

My grandfather was a terrorist—
He walked to the closest safe town,
dark as the sullen sky,
vacant as a deserted tent,
darkling as a starless night. 

My grandfather was a terrorist—
My grandfather was a man,
a breadwinner for ten,
whose luxury was to have a tent,
with a blue UN flag set on the rusting pole,
on the beach next to a cemetery.

 

Things You May Find Hidden In My Ear

For Alicia M. Quesnel, MD

I

When you open my ear, touch it
gently.
My mother’s voice lingers somewhere inside.
Her voice is the echo that helps recover my equilibrium
when I feel dizzy during my attentiveness. 

You may encounter songs in Arabic,
poems in English I recite to myself,
or a song I chant to the chirping birds in our backyard. 

When you stitch the cut, don’t forget to put all these back in my ear.
Put them back in order as you would do with books on your shelf.

II

The drone’s buzzing sound,
the roar of an F-16,
the screams of bombs falling on houses,
on fields, and on bodies,
of rockets flying away—
rid my small ear canal of them all.

Spray the perfume of your smiles on the incision.
Inject the song of life into my veins to wake me up.
Gently beat the drum so my mind may dance with yours,
my doctor, day and night.

 

 

Palestinian Sonnet

After Wanda Coleman

Seized by echoes of suppressed words,
I surrender my memory as I flee for the maze.
I see signposts
directing me to retreat whenever I try to explore.
Every day I set foot in the maze; I close my ears
but the shouts coming from suffocated whispers
paralyze my shadow.

Letters slide from my mouth
into an icy river,
break the reflection of vapor
that emanates from melting clouds.

The chattering teeth of cold raindrops
out-sound my throbbing silence.

It is not me who tries to walk in the maze.
My withered umbilical cord tries to pull me
to my sick mother’s bedside
before it is cut mid-nowhere.

 

 

A Rose Shoulders Up

Don’t ever be surprised
to see a rose shoulder up
among the ruins of the house:
This is how we survived.

 

 

 

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: City Lights Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0872868605
• ISBN 13: 9780872868601
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 100
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar