Mizna Online

Three Poems by Mohja Kahf

April 16, 2025

by Mohja Kahf

In these three poems by academic and poet Mohja Kahf, Syria is written not only as the site of violent abduction and imprisonment, but also as a diverse country suffering from Arab and Sunni supremacy.—Layla Faraj, editorial assistantIf you know anything, tell Maimounaif you met someone who’s been in prisonand may have seen them, tell MaimounaYou can’t mourn; to mourn is to desert them.They might still be alive, they are.—Mohja Kahf, Tell MaimounaTell MaimounaThey weren’t on the...

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Two Poems by Banah el Ghadbanah

April 8, 2025

by Banah el Ghadbanah

As we reflect on Syria’s last fifty-three years under the Assad regime and look to the future of the country in the aftermath of it’s fall, Mizna shares two poems from Syrian poet Banah Ghadbian which speak on past moments of joy and present moments of confrontation and reconciliation.—Layla Faraj, editorial assistantBanat Ishreh*I look at the photograph of banat ishreh, the secret oud circle my city grandmother heldwhile my country grandmother tilled the earthand think “is this...

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On Which Side of the Screen Lies the Ghost? 

April 2, 2025

by Lamia Abukhadra

Gaza is the ghost of the world, the persistent presence that, despite all efforts to erase it, to make it disappear, remains and resists. It is Gaza that has shown us the impossible: the horrors of settler colonialism at its most extreme and brutal, the ways in which resistance is possible in the smallest of gestures, and finally, the triumphant acts of return and reunification following the now-broken ceasefire agreement. The ghost of the world has shown us the world for what it is and what...

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Ink is the Strongest Gunpowder

March 31, 2025

by Athena Farrokhzad

are you a total fucking idiot
do you know anything about gunpowder      
have you heard a hand grenade detonate
have you seen a combat medic amputate eighty legs in one go
do you understand what 75% saltpeter
15% charcoal and 10% sulfur can achieve

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Review: Perfect Victims: And the Politics of Appeal by Mohammed...

March 28, 2025

by Summer Farah

Subtlety: something I go back and forth worrying about, an oscillation between “not that deep” or “not worth it” to address, but with the knowledge that it is still cutting, cutting, cutting. 

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RAINDROPS

March 4, 2025

by Mazen Halabi

Thunder drummed in jubilation as our tires tangoed with the city’s cobblestones, and we rode like Khalid and Abu Obiedah, banging on the city’s gates, claiming Damascus as our own. We were her boys, and she gently embraced us, pulling the cover of rain over to protect us. Our clothes, drenched and heavy with rain, clung tightly. We were soaked to the last inch of our bodies. We wore soft, innocent smiles. Not a word was uttered.

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Uncrafted #2: An Interview with Sarah Aziza

February 26, 2025

by Hazem Fahmy

In the past few decades, as liberal cultural institutions have grown more dastardly effective at co-opting and defanging the political potential of writers and artists from historically marginalized backgrounds, the amorphous imperative to “witness” continuously re-emerges in the face of unceasing tragedy wrought about by the United States, its ruling class, and its ghastly allies across the globe. We are implored to “witness” atrocity after atrocity, but never as more than...

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

February 18, 2025

by Diaa Wadi

Should I tell you a secret?

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

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A Palestinian Tomorrow—A New Poem by Randa Jarrar

January 21, 2025

by Randa Jarrar

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

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1500 Invasions Later: Photos of Destruction and Resilience from...

December 18, 2024

by Noora Said and Yousef Hamad

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.

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Before I Sleep—Poem from Forest of Noise

December 5, 2024

by Mosab Abu Toha

It looks me in the eye
and recounts to me
the many times
it let me live.

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Honoring Palestinian Poets in a Time of Genocide: Poems from...

November 26, 2024

by George Abraham

Love takes the form of rain clouds: we accumulate despite our im/possible wounds, gather even in miraculous conditions. We join our kin in the swarm, all of whom gathering, like us, as waters from unknowable sources. And then the flood.

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Toward an Apocalypse of Letters—Foreword to 25.1: Catastrophe

November 4, 2024

by George Abraham

Love takes the form of rain clouds: we accumulate despite our im/possible wounds, gather even in miraculous conditions. We join our kin in the swarm, all of whom gathering, like us, as waters from unknowable sources. And then the flood.

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Flashbang

October 29, 2024

by Leila Mansouri

The building next door was stripped naked, its shattered windows gaping onto disarranged kitchens and bedrooms. My aunt’s building was leveled entirely.

“Pow,” she said, flattening the air between her hands.

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Now, for the Weather

October 10, 2024

by Aurielle Marie

here: here: here: here: take what I have in exchange
(but what do I have?) just this:

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