trans. by Nour Jaljuli & Aiya Sakr

It was April of 2024 that Mizna first published Diaa Wadi’s essay “Autobiography of Gaza”. Back then, executive editor George Abraham reflected that “‘ceasefire’—a bare minimum demand back in October—has come to lose all meaning as the horrors of Al-Shifa Hospital and other Zionist massacres unravel before our eyes . . .” Now, in January of 2025, we find ourselves yet again grappling with what it means to cross that threshold marked by whatever it is a term like “ceasefire” could ever hope to signify some 460 days and tens of thousands of casualties of zionist genocide later. We again urge all readers to consider donating to Diaa Wadi’s campaign to evacuate his family to safety.

—Nour Eldin H., Mizna assistant editor

Should I tell you a secret?

I’m afraid of the anguish I hold within me. Do people fear their own anguish?

—Diaa Wadi (trans. Nour Jaljuli & Aiya Sakr)

On the Edge of a Volcano, a Rip through a Gazan’s Heart

This grief is larger than anything I can bear. My eyes shatter from what I witness and my brain withers with the endless thoughts and storms of my own imagination.

I write these words while my heart rings like an alarm with fear and anxiety. I write as the Occupation’s artillery shells and war missiles drop on my family. But now, people see these bombs as raindrops, not tons of explosives and fires eating at Gazan bodies, souls, and buildings.

It is the worst of times. People are being slaughtered—mounds of flesh fill the streets and homes. People in the south of Gaza have turned into the new object of slaughter, while in the north, slaughter joins starvation and thirst.  Monumental exhaustion weighs down my tongue.

I imagine them now, spread across the corners of the tent with burnt edges. An empty tent with only gravel and stone. Each of them holding onto their suitcases, their documents, and their few belongings. They stare at each other. Fear sits with them as they wait for the end with each minute. They remember the moments they shared with their beloved martyrs, every person who left to the sky. They remember the warm family gatherings, loud laughter, daily bickering. They wonder, “Will the day ever come when we argue again, and storm out of our home?” But there’s no home left, no fights, it’s all rubble and ruin—ruin beyond anybody’s description.

I am now reading through reports and searching the faces of survivors and the names of martyrs from al-Shuja‘iyya neighborhood to find out what has become of my uncle, his wife, and their children after connection has been lost. I look for them so I don’t come across their pictures and names by accident as I had before with my martyred aunts and uncle.

Can you understand? You can’t understand and you will never know.

Death came near a few days ago. All of my senses were heightened. Except sight. I didn’t need my ears to hear, the voices were coming from inside of me and from the outside too. I spent my life trying to adjust, to heal from the torments of previous wars. I thought they would face no pain after I left them. Didn’t I do it for their sake? To protect them from harm and need? Did I not suffer distance, rejection, and lonely laboring to provide them with all their wishes?

Now, evil is growing. What is happening in Gaza is a genocide, a policy for organized mass killing. This is terrorism and ethnic cleansing. This is organized state terrorism. And my family is there. They are there with all of my people of Gaza suffering through wounds that can swallow a world whole. Fifty thousand martyrs. Life itself will end before we’re able to adequately mourn each and every one of them. The wounded are in every street, remnants strewn across rocks and trees, dogs are gnawing at the living and the dead, and helplessness is amputating every living part inside of us.

This is the truth that beats at us: that this unlawful attack is a mere tool to erode our very sense of self, to plow out of us every concept, idea, and belief; it is the  complete disregard of all useless laws laid out in ink on paper. What is happening in Gaza singles us out, a dignified people kneaded with death, a people whose fate is folded in with facing tragedy alone. This is nothing new in our cycle of setbacks. We don’t know fear and we don’t surrender to any weakness, even if it was the color of blood.

As for you, living outside the borders of these bombs, know that there is no room for a middle ground. You are either a person of honor defending against our pain with your blood, words, voice, and arms, or you are stuffed with filth, apathy, and so-called neutrality.

The greatest agonies in a person’s life happen during childhood and adolescence—not because of their relative weakness at that age, but because the concepts that may aid them to bear these pains have not yet formed and taken root within. So pain shapes and mutilates their thoughts as it wishes. My life in Gaza was filled with anguish of many forms and shapes. The war of 2008, another one in 2012, 2014, 2021, and now this war—a war a thousand times more violent than anything that has ever preceded even though I am not there.

Helplessness, grief, and loss mold a weapon that stabs at my soul, my heart, and my stamina. This weapon reshapes itself, again and again. It pounds at me until I am debilitated. Every day I grow more certain that what was taken from Gazans cannot be retrieved—this is at the heart of our journey. And the ugly truth is that this sorrow is invisible. No eyes can track it. No one can gauge the size of the blow or how deep the wound runs.

Baraa, my brother, let’s play a game.

I will let you go to bed late, and I won’t worry over you swimming long laps in the sea. I will give you hours to play and I won’t smother you with advice. I will get you the phone you want. I won’t tell mom about some of your grades, and I will hide your shenanigans from the family—keep it all in my heart like a gentle breeze. You can have all you want and more. Under one condition, brother: that you don’t leave on my behalf.

“They cannot expel us unless they transfer our corpses to Sinai. This idea they have of us walking there is a fantasy.” This is what my father tells me before the internet and all communications with them are cut off. We will not leave, we will not have a tent in Sinai, and we will not look back at Gaza longingly from behind a fence. Death smells good in the face of the hell our souls are now subjected to.

An international call comes through.

To be honest, I fear nothing more than an international call with a Palestinian code. He says, “Another Baptist Massacre, Diaa.” He cries and hangs up.

Oh God, give us our old fear back. The one that vanishes when we see family and friends.

Give us our old sorrows and normal life. Give us everything that was and forgive us for complaining.

Give us normal fear just like all people. Oh God, only give us what is mundane.

My mother tells me that some of the women cut off their hair due to the lack of shampoo and cleaning supplies. They’ve been off the shelves for ages. Some have even cropped their children’s hair for fear of lice and parasites. They want to maintain their personal hygiene even if by the bare minimum.

What an unremarkable piece of news. No one will care. It doesn’t have the word “massacre.”

Take this advice from a bereaved soul—pray to God more because you have your children with you; hug your mothers more and sleep at their hands; take photos with your siblings and forgive them for their mistakes; hug your fathers, touch their faces and heads, and ask for their blessings; give your thanks to God that your mothers are nearby and safe and that your family is well. Others have had their hearts eaten by sorrow and the world tested them with what  they hold dearest. I am others.

All of us are like this, with no exceptions. We each got our share of suffering, having to watch our families in tents, friends in hospitals, and their remains gathered in death bags.

Gazans have suffered every kind of torment there is. They’ve tried them all in order and they never stopped paying a dear and outrageous price the rest of the world cannot fathom. We pay with each passing second, literally, a hefty price no one in this time has ever paid. What falls on the heads of Gazans are lava balls of hatred, resentment, and a wish for our extermination. It’s a terrifying state that was never before experienced by anyone other than us in this modern day. Allah is almighty.

“Triers of pain,” that’s what Gazans are. We try pain, pain tries us, Gazan pain—what do you think? Are these titles catchy enough? Are they good enough for your fancy publications? Choose the most emotive descriptions and choose carefully. Take your time. This is not human blood. These are not real scenes. Stay neutral and don’t bother providing a single drop to those drinking filthy sewage water.

May whomever is standing on neutral ground fall. May they fall, those who didn’t give their money, or lend their voice, pen, tears, and prayers. 

We are humans and we know sorrow. But this feeling isn’t sorrow, anguish, nor pain. This thing doesn’t have a name. Today, on the phone with my uncle, he responded with a single sentence, “We’re hungry.” I hung up immediately. I couldn’t bear it.

What does the world want? We will die of anguish!

Should I tell you a secret?

I’m afraid of the anguish I hold within me. Do people fear their own anguish?

They must fear their own anguish and resentment when there’s no way to relieve it, to dispose of it, or deal with it. A sort of anguish that repeats daily in larger and larger doses. An anguish that cuts the strings of my heart and now seeps into my very features and behaviors. An anguish that, if placed on a mountain, would shake it or even force it to collapse.

“Stockpiling crisis,” this is the state in which Gazans are living now. They remain steadfast in their homes despite all that has happened and happens every day.

Gazans are stockpiling their crises and sorrows, so that once this war ends, another can begin. A war no news channel will cover, a war uncapturable without bombardment. A war of trying to eat without ash, now a permanent resident in our mouths. A war of going out to the street without conjuring amputated limbs and heads split open. From the war of tanks and weapons is born another war to build a new life.

“Israel commits a new massacre in al-Nuseirat.”

“Israel targets an UNRWA school sheltering refugees.”

“Israel buries children alive under the school rubble.”

“Israel kills entire displaced families inside the school.”

The world must understand that Palestinians, even when they carry weapons, are always the righteous ones, and that Israelis, even if they are lounging on the beaches of Haifa, are always guilty.

They have barely entered life’s threshold; they don’t have passports. They know the world only through screens. They know nothing outside of the wall. No trains, no civil planes, no mall escalators. They don’t know a boat or the sea without siege. They don’t know.

Baha, Alaa, Bara, and Mohammad, my brothers, don’t know.

After the war on Gaza, mothers will ask about their children’s graves.

If a mother wishes to sit by her son’s grave, “Where’s my son buried?” I don’t know. All I know is that this is a mass grave. Perhaps your son is here or there, or perhaps his parts are bagged together in a different mass grave.

You don’t know the meaning of anguish. You cannot understand what it means for your family to sleep on sand in a tent on the coldest and hottest days of the year. You cannot understand what it means to not find a bathroom to go to when you need it. You don’t understand the meaning of all of this. If we place all of this sorrow in a basket over your head none of you will be able to bear it.

This basket of sorrows is too heavy.

My brother Mohammad tells me that at the beginning of the war he only missed home, but now he misses opening the fridge door, sleeping in his own bed, and turning the lock on our front door.

He tells me about his discoveries in this war, “The thing is, you will long first for the main thing—our home. But then you start thinking about details that never crossed your mind, like opening the fridge.”

Mohammad, let’s play a game.

When we hear the bombs, we run.

Whoever gets tired loses the game.

I never imagined being on the outside of the war; the war that never left us. Loss and helplessness increase with the distance. Keeping up with the war through windows and streets would have been easier than constantly flipping between screens, news channels, images of martyrs, tracking neighborhoods, and endless phone calls, one after the other.

All that I do these days is try to find a way to describe how I feel. At least that way I will be able to hold the keys of knowledge and understand, even just a little, how my mind and heart can settle.

Choice turns into a daily hardship. Especially with the tremendous number of choices we must face in every moment of our lives.

But the choices this time are not only confusing, they’re deadly. Either your flesh is shattered to pieces, or you escape your home with no guarantee that you’ll even survive. You either suffer starvation and fear in the north, or the anguish of living in a tent with its unbearable heat in the south.

But the world did its best to aid us. The world was too generous and offered us a long list of choices: to be killed, or displaced. 

Oh Gazan, what do you think? Should you die by a missile that will turn you into pieces no larger than a finger, or do you want to die with your limbs amputated by a bomb?

No, you still have another choice, a lucky choice: to die whole. What do you say if a bullet should hit you between your shoulders, ripping through your body?

Language has changed, and words mean different things now. Children know school as a place of learning, boring math lessons, and a yard where they can run and play. But now school has become a shelter, a place where you sleep surrounded by carpet bombings and shelling. Mohammad tells me he won’t be able to go to school after the war. The only thing he’ll be able to see are images of him running between bombs to reach shelter in the same school he had once loved and studied in. This is the trauma that children won’t be able to escape.

There are moments when one is forced to question their own sanity. How did I endure all of this harm, my soul as clean as a bird’s? You are shocked by your own ability to endure, and are afraid you will suddenly collapse for no reason after having to bear all of this.

They peeled away all of my loved ones. I remain naked and alone, pretending that “strength” is the only life raft available to me.

After once shivering at the thought of us turning into mere numbers, shame has led us to see the genocide as some sort of victory because the Occupation failed to achieve its goals.

I am as silent as a lamb. I only speak when necessary, or I nod my head. I don’t talk much, and I wait for the night to look for them in my dreams. Last night, I saw them walking to the west, carrying their things. With every kilometer they walked, they would cry all at once to lighten the load. Off they went, no one knows where they are now. Perhaps they were killed or maybe they’re still walking. I don’t know if they have enough tears to see the journey through.

Humans have always been more brutal than animals. Even preying animals only eat because they’re hungry. But what is wrong with humans? Are they even humans, or monsters cast upon us?

I don’t know what to tell you about Gaza now. But the road to heaven is crowded in Gaza.

The great poet Al-Muari once wrote upon losing a dear one, “My sadness over his departure is like the blessings of the people of heaven, it’s born anew every time it runs out.”

The tears that fall by accident are the voices of loved ones preserved in our bodies after they leave us. They fall whenever the heart longs to hear their voice and has no other way to find it.

They disperse between bombs. Some survive and leave elsewhere. Death by scorched earth policies, families exterminated by every kind of weapon and tool, from missiles to vicious dogs, each dies according to their own fate.

Perhaps in heaven when martyrs come together, they will tell each other about how they died.

“How did I pass? By a missile.” Another says, “I was killed by a bomb,” and a child responds “Uncle, a sniper shot me.”

Diaa Wadi is a Palestinian writer and blogger. He studied mechanical engineering and has traveled to many countries speaking for the Palestinian cause at international events. Wadi believes in literature and writing as an effective tool of resistance against the Occupation. He writes about the life of Gazans and the details which are often overlooked by the camera. As Refaat Al-Areer said, “If I must die, / you must live / to tell my story.” Diaa writes on behalf of all those who left us, to honor the martyrs and send them eternal love—for the martyr Refaat Al-Areer, now more than ever. Diaa tweets @diaawadi2.

Nour Jaljuli is a translator and poet traversing between the worlds of Arabic and English. She holds an MA in literary translation from the University of East Anglia and is the Arabic translator of Rana Dajani’s Five Scarves. Her translations have appeared in ArabLit, Middle East Eye, Jummar, and the 2022 UEA MALT Anthology for which she was also coeditor. You can find out more about her work on nourjaljuli.wordpress.com.

Aiya Sakr (she/they) is a Palestinian-American poet and artist. They are the author of Her Bones Catch the Sun (The Poet’s Haven, 2018). A Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared in Foglifter, Mizna, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She is a co-organizer for In Water and Light, a regular community building space and reading series for Palestine. She is also a Winter 2023 Tin House Fellow, and has served as Poetry Editor for Sycamore Review. They hold an MFA in Poetry from Purdue University. She collects buttons, and is enthusiastic about birds.

Toward a Free Palestine: Resources to Learn About and Act for Palestine

We are proud to present this text as part of a list of resources to take action for and learn about Palestine, as well as works by Palestinian artists, writers, activists, and cultural workers.

The post On the Edge of a Volcano, a Rip through a Gazan’s Heart appeared first on Mizna.

English below

دعوةٌ لِلمشاركةِ فِي عددٍ مِن مجلَّةِ مزنة خاصٍّ بِغزَّة: إصدارٌ خاصٌّ مِن وإلى الكُتّابِ والكاتباتِ الغزِّيِّينَ/اتَ معَ المُحَرِّرِ الضَّيفِ يَحيى عاشور

في ظِلِّ هُدنةٍ غيْرِ وثيقةٍ بعدَ خمسةَ عشرَ شهراً مِن إبادةٍ جماعيَّةٍ وحصارٍ صهيونيٍّ على الفلسطينيّينَ/اتِ في غزَّة، تسعى مجلَّةُ مزنة في أمريكا، والتي تختصُّ بِأدبِ مَنْ لهم جذورٌ عربيَّة وجنوب غرب آسيويَّة، إلى تعزيزِ واحتضانِ أصواتٍ غزِّيَّة في إصدارٍ خاصّ. يُرحِّبُ المشروع، رِفقةَ المُحَرِّرِ الضيف، الشَّاعرِ الغزِّي يَحيى عاشور، بِمشاركاتٍ أدبيَّةٍ مِن كُتّابٍ وكاتباتٍ في غزَّة وكذلكَ كُتّابٍ وكاتباتٍ فلسطينيّينَ/اتٍ في الشَّتاتِ مِمَّن لهم جذورٌ غزِّيَّة 

محتوى المشاركاتِ مفتوح، سواءٌ أكانَ ذا صلةٍ بِالحصارِ والإبادةِ الجماعيَّةِ بِشكلٍ مباشرٍ أو غيرِ مباشرٍ، أو لمْ يكنْ له صلةٌ بذلكَ بِالمُطلق، فكُلُّ تجربةٍ تـ/يمرُّ بها الغزِّيّ/ة جديرةٌ بِالاهتمام

سيحصلُ الكُتّابُ والكاتباتُ على مكافأةٍ ماليّةٍ لا تقل عن ٢٠٠ دولار في حالِ تمَّ اختيارُ مُشاركاتِهمِ/هُنَّ

شروطُ التَّقديم

١. يجبُ ألّا يكونَ النصُّ الأدبيُّ منشوراً مُسبقاً بأيِّ شكل

٢. يمكنُ تقديمُ النَّصِّ الأدبيِّ بِاللُّغةِ العربيَّة أو الإنجليزيَّة

٣. كلُّ أجناسِ النُّصوصِ الأدبيَّةِ مقبولة

٤. يجبُ ألّا تتجاوزَ النُّصوصُ الأدبيَّة ٣ آلافِ كلمة؛ يُسمحُ بِتقديم ٣ قصائدَ كحدٍّ أقصى، أو نصٍّ أدبيِّ واحد

٥. يُرجى إرفاقُ نبذة مُختصرة عن الكاتبِ/ة مِن ٥٠ كلمة كحدٍّ أقصى، تتضمَّنُ المنطقةَ أو الحيّ الذي ترعرعَ/تْ فيهِ الكاتبُ/ ة أو أهله/ا في غزَّة، وعددِ مرَّاتِ النزوحِ. يمكنُ أيضاً إرفاقُ صورةٍ شخصيَّةٍ للكاتبِ/ة

٦. تُرسلُ النصوصُ الأدبيَّةُ إلى واحدةٍ من هاتينِ الوسيلتينِ وليسَ كِلتاهُما

عبرَ البريدِ الإلكترونيّ
gazafolio@mizna.org
أو، مِن بابِ التَّسهيلِ عبرَ رقمِ الواتساب: 0006 946 612 1

آخرُ موعدٍ لاستقبالِ المشاركاتِ هو ٣ آذار/مارس، ٢٠٢٥م، السَّاعةُ ١١:٥٩ مساءً بِتوقيتِ غزَّة

تعرَّف أكثر على يَحيى عاشور

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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS Mizna Gaza Folio: A special publication by and for Gazan writers guest-edited by Yahya Ashour

At the juncture of a tenuous ceasefire after the fifteen-month-long Zionist genocide and siege of Palestinians in Gaza, the US-based Arab/SWANA literary journal Mizna seeks to amplify and embrace voices from Gaza with a special publication. Guest-edited by Gazan poet Yahya Ashour, the project welcomes submissions from writers in Gaza as well as Palestinian writers in diaspora who have roots in Gaza. 

The content is open—related to the siege and genocide directly or indirectly or not at all—every experience you have as a Gazan is relevant for consideration. 

Accepted writers will receive a minimum $200 USD honorarium.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

1. 1. Unpublished work
2. 2. English or Arabic only
3. 3. All literary forms accepted
4. 4. Under 3,000 words; maximum three poems, or one prose piece
5. 5. Fifty word author bio that includes where you originate from in Gaza. Optionally, you may include an author photo and how many times you have been forced to evacuate. 
6. 6. Submit writing to gazafolio@mizna.org, or, if needed, to Whatsapp number +1 612 946 0006.

DEADLINE: March 3, 2025, 11:59pm Gaza time

Learn more about Yahya Ashour

Learn more about Mizna

The post Call for Submissions | دعوةٌ لِلمشاركات appeared first on Mizna.

As we celebrate a ceasefire and renew our commitment to fighting alongside our Gazan kin toward a free Palestine, Mizna shares a new poem by Randa Jarrar that insists on a future of Palestinian aliveness. This piece will be published in Mizna’s forthcoming Futurity-themed issue, edited by Barrak Alzaid and Aram Kavoossi.

A Palestinian Tomorrow

after Jotamario Arbeláez

For us, all of us, part of our resistance to the erasure of genocide is to talk about tomorrow in Gaza, to plan for the healing of the wounds of Gaza tomorrow. We will own tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a Palestinian day.

—Ghassan Abu-Sitta

not the day after the war but a day after
the day after the war,
—that day—
the men will sleep for the first time 
without fearing death or its thefts
and for days after that day they will rest
but only a little bit after everyone else 
especially the children 
and the days after the day after the day 
after the war because there is always a war 
the mothers will sleep for two weeks
in shifts
and after that they will start a school
but only after the day that they lie
on the bare earth to say,
I will hold you and only you
in my lungs and heart one day, 
but thankfully not today.

Because today there is still a war and 
maybe after the war there will be a day,
if after the war I have a drum or even a mouth 
to fix to say that we will dance 
and laugh so hard a day 
after the day after the war
and after that we will sleep some more
if after the war there is more 
than a day if after the war
there is a ghost
of a heart or of a lung
if after the war we meet
by each other’s graves 
after we crawl out
on that day, the day
after the day after the
day after the war

Randa Jarrar is a Palestinian artist, author, professor, and actor based in Los Angeles.

Toward a Free Palestine: Resources to Learn About and Act for Palestine

We are proud to present this text as part of a list of resources to take action for and learn about Palestine, as well as works by Palestinian artists, writers, activists, and cultural workers.

The post A Palestinian Tomorrow—A New Poem by Randa Jarrar appeared first on Mizna.

Mizna welcomes Moheb Soliman, who will begin as Executive Editor and Literary Programs, taking over from George Abraham’s distinguished period at the helm of the Mizna journal. Abraham will continue on in a new role as Editor at Large and Editor of Mizna Online, as they settle into their new faculty position as Writer-in-Residence at Amherst College’s English Department. “Over the past year, Mizna has played the critical role of providing space for our communities to gather in collective grief, rage, and solidarity. This staffing expansion comes as Mizna continues to meet an urgent moment for our communities in and from Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan and beyond; publishing, screening, promoting, and preserving Arab & SWANA voices through new and existing programs,” says Mizna’s Deputy Director Ellina Kevorkian.

Soliman first joined the staff of Mizna more than ten years ago as a transplant from Montreal, moving to Minnesota, where Mizna is rooted, to work as Community Liaison and eventually becoming Program Director, working closely with director Lana Salah Barkawi. For five years, he became familiar with local and national contemporary Arab/SWANA creative spheres, and led Mizna into new interdisciplinary art and literary territories. During this time, Soliman developed his own practice as a poet and performance artist, creating work at the intersection of identity, modernity, nature, and otherness. “I am thrilled to be back with the organization, colleagues, and community that so deeply shaped me. I can’t wait to continue the work of amplifying and expanding the boundaries of our creative expression and critical consciousness,” says Soliman.

In 2018, Soliman left Minneapolis for the multi-year Tulsa Artist Fellowship and eventually returned for a BIPOC-centric fellowship with Milkweed Editions. There, he focused on development and acquisition for the Seedbank series, which holds books from across the globe and across time that deal with human relationships to environment, place, and the non-human living world. He was also part of the Milkweed editorial team, guiding diverse poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction manuscripts through the publication process to books. Both of these recent immersions, in addition to years of project management and programming work with an array of Twin Cities arts organizations and national literary institutions, make his return to Mizna in this new capacity a fitting, exciting, and happy one. 

Moheb Soliman attended Eugene Lang at the New School for Social Research and the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. His debut poetry book HOMES was published by Coffee House Press. He lives in Northeast Minneapolis with his partner, writer Kathryn Savage. 

George Abraham is a Palestinian American poet, essayist, critic, and performance artist. They are the author of When the Arab Apocalypse Comes to America (Haymarket, 2026) and Birthright (Button Poetry, 2020), which won the Arab American Book Award and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist.  As Executive Editor of Mizna, Abraham has spearheaded the production process of three print journals, Myth and Memory, Cinema, and Catastrophe, and has helped launch and edit our new digital publication, Mizna Online. On their new position, Abraham commented, “I am excited to continue visioning and producing an online publication which complements our biannual print publication with regular content reflecting on the urgent and current realities of the SWANA region and beyond. In a moment where so many authors and artists are being censored for expressing their solidarity with Palestine, Mizna Online has become a vital space. As we continue to stand against the genocide in Gaza, we have focused much of our efforts this past year on publishing work in solidarity with Palestine. Forthcoming work will continue to critically engage with Palestine and Sudan as well as recent developments in Syria and beyond. We also look forward to expanding our work in literary and cultural criticism, with projects such as Hazem Fahmy’s Uncrafted column, and other urgent projects addressing gaps in the literary landscape.”

The post Moheb Soliman Rejoins Mizna Staff as Executive Editor and Literary Programs Director appeared first on Mizna.

“The reality that it is the refugees, who lost their homes and land in 1948 and have been living under difficult conditions for 76 years, are the ones targeted the most in this murderous war, and are thus paying the highest price of all. It is difficult to accept that it is mostly the refugees who are willing to pick up the weapons and fight a nuclear army with their own blood, whether it is the refugees in the Gaza Strip or in the West Bank.”

—Noora Said

During a few visits to Jenin Refugee camp in the north of the West Bank, Yousef Hammad documents a reality of destruction and resilience through a series of black and white photos. Leaving the role of contrast mainly to the shadows, this low-contrast series captures the stillness of life in the camp, as in the rest of Palestine; Palestinians await a bloody and unbalanced battle to determine their future. The camp is filled with bullet holes, relatively vacant streets, and destroyed houses, instead of its own people, whose lives have become impossible with the constant military invasions, which have only escalated since mid-May 2021. These photographs were captured from late May to early June of 2024, just a few months before the Israeli occupation’s largest recent military operation titled “Operation Summer Camps,” but after the second largest military invasion which happened in July 2023, a few months before the most recent Zionist genocidal escalation in Gaza. 

Driving through Jenin city to reach the camp, the rubble of the destroyed George Habash roundabout lies in the middle of the street. Habash, referred to as “the wise,” was a prominent Palestinian leader who founded the leftist political party, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). He worked as its secretary general from its founding in 1967 until 2000. As a revolutionary leader, Israel intentionally targeted the urban symbol commemorating his memory and crucial role in the Palestinian liberation struggle. In the current manic psyche of the Israeli state, the army has been strategically and relentlessly targeting material monuments that symbolize resistance. There are many examples from Jenin camp, but some of the most noteworthy are the repeated destructions of the memorial that marks the exact spot where the martyred journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, was shot and killed in cold blood by the Zionist army. They also destroyed the camp’s stone-made entrance, which is called “The Arch of Victory;” it displays the camp’s name and photos of martyrs, and a metal horse sculpture was built from the ruins of the ambulances that Israel bombed during its 2002 large offensive.

Jenin Refugee camp is referred to by Palestinians as the “castle of the revolutionaries” or the “capital of resistance” because it has historically been a birthplace of resistance fighters, and has always witnessed intense battles between its refugees and the invading occupation forces. Subsequently, the Israeli military refers to the camp as the “wasp’s nest” due to their obsessive panic over potential operations by a growing militant brigade. Since 2021, Zionist military invasions of Jenin refugee camp have become a near-weekly occurrence. In the year 2022, according to a Palestinian data center, Mo’ta, Jenin witnessed 97 confrontation incidents, 58 shooting incidents, and 41 stone-throwing incidents. According to research conducted by Abd Albasit Khalaf and published by the Palestine Studies Institute, Jenin city, including all of its villages and refugee camps, has been invaded more than 1500 times in 2023. In another documentation by the Anadolou Agency, from the 7th of October 2023 through the 21st of May 2024, Jenin has been invaded 72 times. Long before the most recent and brutal “Summer Camp” military operation, the resilient Jenin refugee camp has been witnessing recurrent military invasions since mid-2021.

The uprising in 2021, which some refer to as the “unity uprising” and others refer to as the “dignity uprising,” is crucial to the ongoing war in Palestine and the genocide in Gaza. The year 2021 witnessed a re-ignition of Palestinian armed resistance and revived a sense of Palestinian nationalism. This occurred gradually after a series of escalating Zionist attacks on Palestinians. First was the struggle of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood residents, whom Israel is still attempting to forcefully evict out of their homes in Jerusalem. Palestinians came together from every city to participate in solidarity demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah and protest the potential expulsion of these families. It is noteworthy here to mention that the photographer, Yousef, and his family are among the families living in one of the houses threatened with eviction. Unsurprisingly, the Israeli police and army met these peaceful protestors with brutal force to completely and immediately dismantle the demonstrations that were taking place daily.

Second, in May, during Ramadan of that year, the occupation invaded al-Aqsa mosque multiple times, attacking Palestinian worshippers there with tear gas bombs and batons and arresting more than 300 people. Both the al-Aqsa mosque invasion and the Sheikh Jarrah solidarity protests sparked a smaller uprising, especially amongst the youth of Jerusalem, historic Palestine, and refugee camps in the West Bank. The mobilization coming from Palestinians with Israeli citizenship presented an unhappy surprise to the occupation state. It completely infuriated the occupation government and a large-scale arrest campaign was conducted as a result. Following al-Aqsa raids and as a stand of solidarity, the resistance in Gaza began firing missiles at the occupation state, marking the start of the 2021 war on Gaza, which Palestinians call the “Sword of Jerusalem” battle. On a military level, supposedly, the Palestinians have won. However, the broken hearts and limbs of the orphans and the parents without their children resonate forever. Finally, in September of that year, six prisoners managed to heroically escape Jalbou, one of the most secure Israeli prisons, by digging a tunnel to freedom, though they were all later found and re-arrested.

These intensifying aggressions by Israel caused the birth of many combatant battalions to re-form, especially in refugee camps across the West Bank, synchronizing with the new generation’s moment and experience. Jenin is no exception. The Jenin battalion re-emerged, uniting combatants belonging to different political parties. The last three years have been tough on the seven-decade-old refugee camp and its inhabitants. With every weekly invasion, Palestinians, including children, are killed, as houses are burnt and damaged. Nonetheless, collective punishment is central to the strategic policy of the Zionist army. As their bulldozers destroy the infrastructure in nearly every invasion, they are cutting off people’s water pipes, electricity, and transportation, causing an obstruction of the refugees’ everyday life. In July 2023, Israel conducted an aggression against the camp, the largest since 2002. Today, many of the camp’s residents have temporarily left because a normal daily life has been rendered impossible. Many of them are sheltering with families and friends who live in the city of Jenin. 

Looking at the destruction and death in Jenin’s Camp, I feel something similar to the pain I feel while looking at the destruction and death in Gaza, the pain of knowing that those who are suffering now were always in vain, even before this renewed pain, knowing that the water pipe and electricity cable, were fixed 365 times last year, knowing that so many loved ones were lost already, and before even reconciling with that, a new loved one is lost. They were all young, so young and full of life.  

Through a broken brick wall, a segment of a sign of an UNRWA project reads “Jenin camp rehabilitation project.” The moment several Western countries unjustly cut off their funding from UNRWA, they cut it off from 5.6 million Palestinian refugees, including the roughly 2 million refugees in Gaza. That politically motivated decision, defying the orders of the International Court of Justice regarding the genocide case raised by South Africa, is an unnegotiable act of collective punishment that extends geographically to the remaining Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Indeed, this biased act that submits to an Israeli historical strategy to eliminate the Palestinian refugee and their right of return; one that has an immeasurable impact on Palestinian refugees everywhere, including refugees of Jenin camp that depend on the aid for their survival. 

It is difficult to accept today’s reality that keeps resurfacing amidst the genocide. The reality that it is the refugees, who lost their homes and land in 1948 and have been living under difficult conditions for 76 years, are the ones targeted the most in this murderous war, and are thus paying the highest price of all. It is difficult to accept that it is mostly the refugees who are willing to pick up the weapons and fight a nuclear army with their own blood, whether it is the refugees in the Gaza Strip or in the West Bank. 

The slogan in all Palestinian refugee camps remains: “One day, we will return.”

Noora Said is a Palestinian filmmaker and artist. Said is also a co-founder of an audiovisual production house, Sirdab Studio. With an MA in Artist Film and Moving Image from Goldsmiths College University of London, and a BA in Film and Media Arts and Sociology, Said’s work delves into contested spaces, identities, and narratives, through socio- and geo-political lenses.

Yousef Hammad is a professional and self-taught Director of Photography and filmmaker from Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem. With a distinct filming and visual identity, Hammad has worked with prominent Palestinian, Arab, and international directors, artists, and cultural and human rights organizations. Hammad is also the co-founder of an audiovisual production house, Sirdab studio.

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The post 1500 Invasions Later: Photos of Destruction and Resilience from the Jenin Refugee Camp appeared first on Mizna.

The 2025 Mizna Film Series presents some of our favorite archival classics from the past 60 years of Iran’s cinema history. Beginning with a beloved film from Abbas Kiarostami and ending with a tribute to Dariush Mehrjui, we’re proud to present these films in collaboration with the Twin Cities Iranian Culture Collective, Archives on Screen, and the Trylon Cinema.

Learn more about the Mizna Film Series here.

Tickets

In-person Trylon tickets: $10
Virtual Tickets: Pay what you can, $5 suggested donation

UPCOMING

JAN 19: CELLULOID UNDERGROUND BY EHSAN KHOSHBAKHT

(2023, DCP, 80 m, English and Farsi with English subtitles) dir Ehsan Khoshbakht
After the Iranian Revolution, a movie collector in Tehran hid thousands of films
to prevent their destruction by the new Islamic regime. Despite arrest and
torture, he refused to give up his secret. His story of resistance and obsession is
told by the boy who became his partner in crime, recalled years later from exile
in London.

This screening is presented in collaboration with the Iranian Film Festival at the Main Cinema.

Watch in-person only on January 19, 2025, 1pm at the Main Cinema.

JAN 22: WHERE IS THE FRIEND’S HOUSE? BY ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

(1987, DCP, 83m, Farsi with English subtitles) dir Abbas Kiarostami
The first film in Abbas Kiarostami’s sublime, interlacing trilogy of films set in the northern Iranian village of Koker takes a premise of fable-like simplicity—a boy searches for the home of his classmate whose school notebook he has accidentally taken—and transforms it into a miraculous, child’s-eye adventure of the everyday. As our young hero zigzags determinedly across two towns aided (and sometimes misdirected) by those he encounters, his quest becomes both a revealing portrait of Iranian society in all its richness and complexity and a touching parable about the meaning of personal responsibility. Shot through with all the wonder, beauty, tension, and mystery one day can contain, Where Is the Friend’s House? established Kiarostami’s reputation as one of cinema’s most sensitive and profound humanists.

Watch in-person only on January 22, 2025 at 7pm at Trylon Cinema

FEB 16 AT IL CINEMA RITROVATO ON TOUR

THE SEALED SOIL + MARJAN AT IL CINEMA RITROVATO ON TOUR

THE SEALED SOIL

(1977, 90 m, Farsi with English subtitles) dir Marva Nabil

Writer-director Marva Nabili made history in 1977 with The Sealed Soil, the first feature film directed by an Iranian woman to be preserved in its entirety to this day. In pre-revolutionary Iran, a young woman refuses to follow the path imposed on her after reaching marriageable age. Meanwhile, we observe the day-to-day life of her family and an entire village forced to move by government order. The young protagonist’s persistent need for independence causes her family to question whether this is a case of demonic possession, and they turn to an exorcist to free her from these undue thoughts and desires. The Sealed Soil is a powerful story of female empowerment, proving that revolutions can also be internal and silent.

MARJAN

(1956, Farsi with English subtitles) dir Marva Nabil

Marjan (1956) is the first Persian feature film directed and produced by a woman in Iran. Filmmaker Shahla Riahi (Ghodrat-ol-Zaman Vafadoost) plays the lead role of Marjan, a Roma woman whose doomed romance with a young school teacher has multiple endings, according to key sources. Shot on 35mm black-and-white film with a runtime of 105 minutes, Marjan was the inaugural production of Arya Film Studio, founded by Riahi herself in 1956. Unfortunately, only two reels of the film can be viewed today, preserved by the Iranian film collector Ahmad Jorghanian, while further surviving reels in the Iranian National Film Center remain completely inaccessible. Film scholar Farzaneh Ebrahimzadeh Holasu will present the surviving fragments in person.

This screening is presented in collaboration with the Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour at the Main Cinema.

Watch in-person only on February 16, 2025 at 1pm.

APRIL 23: BRICK AND MIRROR + THE HOUSE IS BLACK

BRICK AND MIRROR

(1965, DCP, 131m, Farsi with English subtitles) dir Ebrahim Golestan 

With this landmark debut feature, director Ebrahim Golestan delivers a jolt of modernism to pre-revolution Iranian cinema, laying the groundwork for the first new wave. When a mysterious woman (feminist literary icon Forugh Farrokhzād, and director of The House Is Black) abandons a baby in the backseat of his cab one night, Tehran taxi driver Hashem (Zakaria Hashemi) begins a journey through the city’s unfeeling bureaucracy as he attempts to find a home for the infant—a situation that soon puts him in conflict with his nurturing girlfriend Taji (Taji Ahmadi). Melding the influences of Persian poetry, 1960s European art cinema, and Wellesian expressionism, Brick and Mirror offers a portrait of a crumbling relationship that reflects on many contemporary social and political dynamics. 

THE HOUSE IS BLACK

(1964, DCP, 22m, Farsi with English subtitles) dir Forugh Farrokhzād 

The only film directed by trailblazing feminist Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzād finds unexpected grace where few would think to look: a leper colony where inhabitants live, worship, learn, play, and celebrate in a self-contained community cut off from the rest of the world. Through ruminative voiceover narration drawn from the Old Testament, the Qur’an, and the filmmaker’s own poetry as well as unflinching images that refuse to look away from physical difference, Farrokhzād creates a profoundly empathetic portrait of those cast off by society—an indelible face-to-face encounter with the humanity behind the disease. A key forerunner of the Iranian New Wave, The House Is Black is a triumph of transcendent lyricism from a visionary artist whose influence is only beginning to be fully appreciated.

Watch IN-PERSON ONLY April 23, 2024 at 7pm at Trylon Cinema

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Mizna is honored to share an excerpt from Gazan poet Mosab Abu Toha’s heartbreaking collection of poetry, Forest of Noise. For readers in the Twin Cities area, see Mosab Abu Toha speak at the Palestine Festival of Literature on Dec. 9, 2024, link to purchase tickets here.

Before I Sleep

Before I sleep,
Death is always
sitting on my windowsill,
whether in Gaza or Cairo.
Even when I lived
in a tent,
it never failed
to create a window
for itself.
It looks me in the eye
and recounts to me
the many times
it let me live.
When I respond, “But you
took my loved ones away!”
it swallows the light in the tent
and hides in the dark to visit next day.

Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, short-story writer, and essayist from Gaza. His first collection of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and won the Palestine Book Award, the American Book Award, and the Walcott Poetry Prize. Abu Toha is also the founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, which he hopes to rebuild. He recently won an Overseas Press Club Award for his “Letter from Gaza” columns for The New Yorker.

Toward a Free Palestine: Resources to Learn About and Act for Palestine

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The post Before I Sleep—Poem from Forest of Noise appeared first on Mizna.

Mizna is pleased to announce our 2025 Pushcart Prize Nominations. The Pushcart Prize is an annual award and publication that honors the best poetry and prose published by small presses. Read the nominated pieces in our literary journal or on our digital literary platform, Mizna Online, today.

This Rubble is Mine by Noor Hindi, published in Mizna 25.1, Catastrophe

Gaza 2 Khartoum by Mohammed Zenia, published on Mizna Online

The Senses by Mona Kareem, featured in our forthcoming issue Mizna 25.2, Futurities

Flashbang by Leila Mansouri, published in Mizna 25.1, Catastrophe and Mizna Online

On Execution by Abdelrahman ElGendy, published on Mizna Online

Autobiography of Gaza by Diaa Wadi, published on Mizna Online

The post 2025 Pushcart Prize Nominations appeared first on Mizna.

PLEASE READ THE SUBMISSION GUIDELINES CAREFULLY, UNSOLICITED SUBMISSIONS SENT TO OUR EMAIL AND SUBMISSIONS THAT DO NOT ADHERE TO THE GUIDELINES WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED.

SUBMISSIONS ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED

We are opening submissions for our unthemed Summer 2025 Issue, Mizna 26.1, December 6, 2024-January 6, 2025. We write this call as the ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza has passed its one year mark. In the midst of catastrophe and on the brink of new waves of fascism, we look towards cultural work— art, writing, music, film, and criticism— as the generative space in which our communities can come together in grief, rage, and solidarity as we redefine and upend our current world order. For this unthemed issue, we continue to encourage work that affirms the necessity of resistance and steadfastness against imposed structures of catastrophe; work that imagines new collectivities, new forms of struggle, new worlds. We welcome writing which centers Palestine, Armenia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Morocco, Libya, and beyond, places directly affected by the worst of recent imperial devastations. As solidarity with Palestine continues to be met with harsher forms of censorship, doxxing, cancellation of awards and events, expulsion from universities, and firing from professional positions, we also encourage writing from our anti-Zionist comrades as well as those who have been subjected to the aforementioned silencing. While we welcome submissions from former contributors seeking a space for their work in this urgent moment, we also especially encourage submissions from writers who have never been published by us before. 

Mizna has long been a home for literature with innovative, experimental forms, as well as visual art that is published with high quality print production practices. As such, we especially encourage ongoing submissions of visual poetry work, or hybrid works that cross the arbitrary boundaries of genre. In general, literary works of poetry, visual poetry, fiction, flash fiction, nonfiction, creative nonfiction, comics, collage, invented forms, and any forms of mixed print or hybrid work will all be considered. 

Submitters do not need to be SWANA or Arab identified, but work submitted should be considerate of Mizna’s ethos and the social realities of our audiences, as well as aim to contribute to ongoing conversations in and beyond our communities. We encourage submitters to read back issues of Mizna before submitting work for consideration. 

There are no submission fees. Selected contributors receive a $200 honorarium, a 1-year subscription to Mizna, and 5 copies of the issue.

The post Call for Submissions: Mizna Summer Issue 26.1 appeared first on Mizna.

For the first time in recent memory, since Naomi Shihab Nye’s nomination for 19 Varieties of Gazelle in 2002, the 2024 National Book Award finalist list was graced with the presence of Palestinian American poetry: the books of Fady Joudah and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha. Unsurprisingly, especially contextualized within a broader literary cultural sphere of Palestinians claiming that mere representational wins within the US can never be enough as the Zionist-American genocide spirals on, both Joudah and Tuffaha used their NBA platforms to call out American complacency and inspire further direct action to end this genocide and work toward a free Palestine. Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, who was the winner of the National Book Award in Poetry for her collection Something about Living, began her acceptance speech by reorienting us in space-time, translating a good evening in the US into a good morning to “beloved Gaza,” translating an annual ceremony in ordinary time in the US into the 411th day of genocidal escalation for Gaza. 

The night before this historic win, at the finalists reading, Fady Joudah and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha were the only authors who used their platforms explicitly to bring Palestine into the space of the National Book Awards. There, Joudah performed a devastating new poem which was written  for the occasion, turning toward the complicit US audience and daring to ask, “Wouldn’t you agree that Palestine today is the empire of the human heart?” Tuffaha read excerpts from Something about Living that connect today’s moment to other events in our ongoing Nakba, such as the great March of Return and the Zionist invasion of Lebanon, during which June Jordan’s “Moving towards Home” was written. 

I sincerely hope that this NBA recognition inspires further critical attention to the lifelong bodies of work by these two brilliant poets. I am a longtime lover of Fady Joudah’s work, not merely for his capacity to expertly translate Palestinians living and dead, but also for his own poetry. The lyric momentum of the NBA-nominated collection […] is not a linear progression through our ongoing Nakba, but is instead a circular arc of returning. Traces and echoes from his earlier The Earth in the Attic and Alight appear recast through the Nakba of now—for it is and always was that same Nakba—in ways which ask the reader, if even implicitly, where have you been in all of this? Similarly, Something about Living, which was drafted and under contract before the Zionist entity’s 2023 genocidal escalations, embodies a line from Tuffaha’s Kaan and Her Sisters, “repetition is a Nakba,” as it creates un/knowable spectral rhymes between the current genocidal assault on journalists in Gaza and repetitions in recent history such as the assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh (allah yerhamha) and the broader question of, per Edward Said, Palestinian permission to narrate. The nonmetaphorical nature of our permission to narrate can be seen in the details of the post-National Book Award Nomination trajectory for both poets, with NPR censoring words such as “genocide” in their coverage.

I dream of one day assigning these two books together to future poetry students as they provide different models of lyric form and relationality through Nakba. Whereas Joudah’s […] embodies a generative formlessness, with poems liberated from titles and pronouns, that flow like water, undermining violent Western desires for self-explanation and qualification in such a poetics, Tuffaha’s Something about Living builds on her last book’s project of radicalizing Western poetic forms through sonnet crowns that grow thorns, centos composed entirely of Darwish lines, and poems riffing on intellectuals such as Edward Said alongside poets such as Myung Mi Kim and June Jordan.

Although the Western lyric is, at its essence, understood to be defined as the genre which directs its mimesis toward the performance of the mind in solitary thought (see these useful theses from Wendy Lotterman), the lyric “I” of Joudah’s […] directs its mimesis toward becoming an anti/mirror of sorts, refracting and reflecting the many ways that Western living’s unspoken assumptions are predicated on the annihilation of Palestinians. To be a “you” here, is to be not merely an annihilation of the “I” but to be unable to imagine, let alone build, an otherwise. Never have I seen a book so unapologetically unafraid to love Palestinians on our own terms, however il/legible to this world, from the river to the sea. Similarly, Tuffaha’s book, which ends with the lines, “I have no idea what hope is, but our people have taught me a million ways to love,” lingers in the details of our land, our love, and the space between. Here, “love is paying attention,” and also “the father who plants an olive tree for every newborn,” and also “a story we never tire of telling.” Whereas Joudah’s lyric “I” made generative space of the unexplained and unqualified, Tuffaha’s makes generative space of every act of naming: every poem made me research histories of Palestine I had never known, through names that cut through every settler mythos like a vector I never knew I needed. Here, to read Tuffaha’s work is, itself, to return to Palestine, however im/possibly. 

To commemorate this historic moment for our community and hold its grief alongside anger at the failures of the US publishing industry, we are honored to publish these works, in hopes that they may inspire and embolden our community in this impossible hour. With this, echoing the words of Abdelrahman ElGendy, we offer our heartfelt congratulations to the National Book Foundation for being lucky enough to carry the names of Palestinian poets in a time like this.

—George Abraham, Mizna Executive Editor

Are you in solitude with market or in solidarity 
with spectacle? Which part of you 
isn’t a human shield? Whose body parts
are mine? Do you understand that I am 
a national liberation movement?

—Fady Joudah

What is upon us
will require mercy. Let the plural be
a return of us.

— Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

Letter to June Jordan in September

by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

I cannot pass the anniversary of that first news event of childhood without returning to your poem. How from my house I watched. And watching, watched my grief-stricken parents unable to speak. How I leaned into the screen, the chords of the cries, searching for what was recognizable of fingers and thighs, of bracelets and moustaches. Macabre arrangement of bodies with names like our own. I cannot pass without your words. Something about witnessing twice removed. About distances magnified by the shift into language. Of dailyness and my own children’s vernacular and the machine. Grinding us all in its jaws. I met a girl from the camp at a reading in Beirut. She asked if we could talk about the life of poetry. Our families are hauled off to the world of the dead, and every day it is on screen. In Gaza, we’re watching Ferguson, and in Atlanta we’re watching Jerusalem watching Minneapolis watching. Their weapons and their training programs indistinguishable. The word almost flickers for a nanosecond. Here I note the shelf-life of self-censorship, legacy of our era. Some days poems are scrawled on pieces of cardboard and carried on our shoulders at the protest like martyrs. Here I should say something about hope. Here I should say something about living.

On the Thirtieth Friday We Consider Plurals

by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

At the border, a flock of journalists.
A sacrifice of tires burned behind us.
Beneath the picnic tents, a funeral of families.
What else will we become in Gaza if we gather,
if we carry our voices to the razored edge?
We were met by a gallop of prayers,
clamoring recitatives puncturing the shroud
of humid air. We were met by a delirium

of greetings, peace-be-upon-us surreal
between embraces, the horizon locked
and loaded. What is upon us
will require mercy. Let the plural be
a return of us. A carnage of blessings—
bodies freed from broken promises,
from the incumbrances of waiting.

Inimitable

by Fady Joudah

Is this the banality of evil reconvened?
Are you gen G?
Did you vote to make it great again 
or was genocide never genocide to you?
Is there a light inside you dying 
to go out? Who will you mine 
to keep your night bright? How are you
always unprecedented 
even as echo? Am I, a Palestinian, ever not 
an analogy whose progenitor you are? What  
makes your common decency heroic?
Why are you so often the baby 
and I’m the bathwater? 
Will you judge me if I reply Allahu akbar?
And when you forever hold my peace at your altar
is it with or without Salamu alaikum? 
Or, if I say Free, free, will you fill in the blank 
from the river to the sea? 
What do you remember
of Iraqi memory? What if Palestinians 
love their freedom more
than you love their unfreedom?
Did you know this about the way you love?
Did you convert my ashes to your gold dust?
“Horror beyond the reach of psychology,”
have you heard this expression before? 
Are you in solitude with market or in solidarity 
with spectacle? Which part of you 
isn’t a human shield? Whose body parts
are mine? Do you understand that I am 
a national liberation movement? 
Can we hear it for tiny Lebanon 
fighting off the mother of all crimes 
as the laws that made you king said 
one should? Have you been to Yemen 
or just bombed it? How full of emissions 
are you about your emissions?
When did you first export your wisdom
to those you destroy? 
Do you really think I’ll forgive you 
without you asking for forgiveness?
Why should you wait 
until asking is synonymous with your defeat?
Wasn’t tragedy always there 
before you sequenced it?
Is your methylated double helix 
an individual or a corporation? 
For example, when I say, “Horror 
beyond the reach of genetics,”
will you give me or yourself a standing ovation? 
Does Gaza come to mind? 
Wouldn’t you agree 
that Palestine today
is the empire of the human heart?
Have you thanked me or are you worried 
I’ll charge you interest?
What about Sudan? Congo? 
What have you done to the earth?
When were you in love last?
Was it any good?
What have you done to the remainder of my life?
Has it occurred to you 
that you are a childhood robber?
Do you remember that game? 
Was it ever a game? 

Fady Joudah is the author of […] and six other collections of poems. He has translated several collections of poetry from the Arabic and is the co-editor and co-founder of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. He was a winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition in 2007 and has received the Jackson Poetry Prize, a PEN award, a Banipal/Times Literary Supplement prize from the UK, the Griffin Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Arab American Book Award. He lives in Houston, with his wife and kids, where he practices internal medicine.

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is the author of Water & Salt which won the 2018 Washington State Book Award; Kaan and Her Sisters, a finalist for the Firecracker Award; and Something about Living, winner of the 2022 Akron Prize for Poetry and the National Book Awards 2024 for Poetry. Her writing has been published in journals including the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Nation, Poets.org, Protean Magazine, and Prairie Schooner, and in anthologies including The Long Devotion and We Call to the Eye & the Night. She was the translator and curator of the 2022 series Poems from Palestine at The Baffler. She is currently curating a series on Palestinian writers for Words Without Borders entitled Against Silence.

Toward a Free Palestine: Resources to Learn About and Act for Palestine

We are proud to present this text as part of a list of resources to take action for and learn about Palestine, as well as works by Palestinian artists, writers, activists, and cultural workers.

The post Honoring Palestinian Poets in a Time of Genocide: Poems from National Book Award Winner Lena Khalaf Tuffaha + Finalist Fady Joudah appeared first on Mizna.