Smaller than a Mouse- a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye published in her most recent book "Sidekick" 2026

                   Smaller than a Mouse

We demonstrated on a steaming day,

carrying signs,

five hundred thousand people 

in the streets of New York

saying no to war,

gathering crowds for blocks and miles,

crush and press of world's religions

and secular codes, multi-flavored

WE SHALL NOT KILL

and the next day our story,

the story of saying no to war,

was written up in a three-sentence news item

on the back of the front section of the New York Times

smaller than the story of a mouse found

in a chain restaurant soup.

This is the truth.
 

    Poem by award winning Palestinian American poet Naomi Shihab Nye published in her most recent book "Sidekick" 2026  

 https://boaeditions.org/book/sidekick/

Praise for Naomi Shihab Nye

“On every page, Shihab Nye's insistent call is the same: people, all people, deserve to live safe and healthy lives, free from fear and violence. She mourns, rages, takes politicians to task, but always lands on the side of compassion.” —Shelf Awareness

 

Naomi Shihab Nye is the author and/or editor of more than thirty volumes including six collections of poetry from BOA Editions: Sidekick (2026), Red Suitcase (1994), Fuel (1998), You & Yours (2005), Transfer (2011), and The Tiny Journalist (2019). She has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow and a Witter Bynner Fellow. Her numerous awards include a Lavan Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award from BOA, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, the Patterson Poetry Prize, four Pushcart Prizes, the Robert Creeley Prize the Betty Prize from Poets House for her service to poetry, and the Lon Tinkle Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Texas Institute of Letters. She served on the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets from 2010–2015, and in May 2019 she was named the 2019–2021 Young People's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. 

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Mosab Abu Toha's poem "Daughter" on an official transport poster Victoria line train London "... That moment, her eyes sparkle with longing, I can see how she flies from the tent to a time when she leapt through our farm in every direction with eyes closed, only stopping at the fence, where our orange trees embrace our neighbour's olive trees..."

Mosab Abu Toha

@MosabAbuToha

A friend sent me this photo that he took this morning on the Victoria line train London (southbound). It is a poster of my poem “Daughter” on the subway. It is an official Transport for London poster, too.

6:11 PM · May 30, 2025

 "... I love the smell of oranges best

when she remembers"

 Page 37 in The Forest of Noise 

  “In Forest of Noise, his astonishing second book, Mosab Abu Toha is the essential poet embodying the humanity of Gaza, the precious hopes and dreams of all humans, the searing collective cries of children, the indelible honest conscience, the heart and soul. Miraculously he has continued speaking and writing through the horrific genocide of his people and beloved place. His elemental poems dissolve the empty rhetoric and posturing with simple, striking truth. Not blows. Who else among us founds a library in our early twenties? Today Mosab’s books may be crushed, but his most powerful spirit is not.”—Naomi Shihab Nye, author of The Tiny Journalist

“When the Sky Is No Longer” from Something About Living a poem by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha.

Something About Living by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha.
Published by University of Akron Press April 02, 2024.

When the Sky Is No Longer

by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

 

a womb, prayers now besieged

inside your throat hum over whistles

and shrieks—the long how

puncturing what was. 

 

Silence is the first casualty. 

You no longer fear the clamor,

not because you are brave, but

because you’ve learned that death arrives 

noiselessly, hovering

in the bowels of a missile,

 

that the clamor means

you are alive and someone else is dying. 

You note the bleakness of your own heart 

wanting to live in spite of this.

 

“When the Sky Is No Longer” from Something About Living by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha.
Published by University of Akron Press April 02, 2024.
Copyright © 2024 by Lena Khalf Tuffaha.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

 https://poems.com/poem/when-the-sky-is-no-longer/#featured-poet

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This Week In Palestine [actually every week in Palestine] Exceptional Women: Hanan Daoud Mikhail Ashrawi Daughter of Palestine By Zeina Ashrawi Hutchison

Hanan Daoud Mikhail Ashrawi

Daughter of Palestine

By Zeina Ashrawi Hutchison

As a child, I watched my mother precisely, yet effortlessly line her beautiful almond-shaped brown eyes in the mornings. The earthy colors of her make-up palette and the color-tone of the room were comforting in their familiarity. The various shades of green and beige on the bedcovers, the hints of red and orange on the book covers by her bed and sometimes in the clothes she meticulously hangs the night before. The beautiful wood closet doors and brass-colored hardware from the 1960s still feel timeless and homey.

The cream-brown instant coffee that was always placed within the perfect reach of her right hand, would always be followed by the much darker umber of Arabic coffee; the scent adding to the palette of the senses. She always looked focused yet graceful in her application. One line or two, then she checks each eye in the mirror before purposefully moving on to the next step in her routine. The yellow in the palette always came from her notepad that she kept to the side of her dresser, where she wrote down thoughts for a speech she had to give that day or notes for a paper she was working on (or both).  I was later told by my father that that is Mama’s space when she takes time for herself to get her thoughts together for the day.

The phone rings almost constantly, then as now; calls from fellow activists and colleagues discussing strategy, from the press requesting a statement or an interview, or from family or friends wanting to stop by or to discuss plans for family lunch on Sunday. The news, in both Arabic and English, is always on interchangeably, and sometimes simultaneously!

With students.

Her public impromptu speeches, interviews, and writing display her linguistic mastery of both Arabic and English. It was always apparent that she has a deep passion for literature and the arts.... READ MORE https://thisweekinpalestine.com/hanan-daoud-mikhail-ashrawi/

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https://thisweekinpalestine.com/twip-cover-322/ 

Issue: 322, March 2025

Exceptional Palestinian Women

https://thisweekinpalestine.com/table-of-contents-322/

In “Tent,” Palestinian poet and artist Asmaa Dwaima offers a brief, heartbreaking lyric that explores the unimaginable suffering of Gaza’s children as they endure the brutalities of genocide.

Tent

Asmaa Dwaima

February 1, 2025

 

Poetry

In a tent,
Two thin mats stretched
Over the rippled sand.
Two little girls chat:
“I earned more money today,”
One says,
Moving her fist in a circular motion
Over her other palm,
Teasingly.
The other promises
She’ll force her small neck
To endure the box of biscuits
For a longer time,
To withstand more hours of work.
She slowly twists her body,
With great difficulty,
To the other side
And cries…
Then she realizes…

That – for comfort – she doesn’t even have arms
To hug herself.

---

Asmaa Dwaima is a Palestinian writer, poet, artist, and dentist. After being displaced multiple times since October 2023, she currently shelters with her family in southern Gaza. Her creative work delves into themes of loss, resilience, and identity, capturing the enduring strength of the Palestinian people. She is committed to preserving their stories and humanity amid ongoing conflict.

 

 https://proteanmag.com/2025/02/01/tent/

ArabLit New Poetry: ‘The Tent Is Closing in on Us’ By Shaimaa Abulebda

ARABLIT A magazine of Arabic literature in translation

 Palestine, Poetry Shaimaa Abulebda

New Poetry: ‘The Tent Is Closing in on Us’

January 2, 2025

My body recognizes the feel of the air inside tents. It’s well-acquainted with the windy nights and the scorching days and everything in between.

The humidity, relentless in both summer and winter, wraps itself around me like a suffocating shroud. It swells my limbs, making my hands and feet feel heavy and stiff, barely capable of movement. In summer, my face and hands easily get sunburnt; they feel like they are literally on fire, such that I cannot bear the gentle touches of my nieces and nephews. In winter, the biting wind lashes at my hunched back leaving me with searing pain and numb fingers.

Within the confines of tents, I have longed for walls to straighten my back, to shield me from the relentless sun, the biting wind, and the unrelenting rain. -Shaimaa Abulebda

The Tent Is Closing in on Us

By Shaimaa Abulebda

After Mahmoud Darwish

The tent is closing in on us.

Our limbs are squeezed tightly together

in search of warmth in cramped space.

 

We wish for the unmerciful stones—

knowing they could crumble to rubble

and tear us limb by limb—

to surround us, to straighten our hunched backs.

 

The nights stretch long and bitter;

the cold wind coming from the sea

gnaws at our bones and lashes at our backs.

 

We wish for the treacherous ceilings—

knowing they could collapse upon us

and crush our frail skeletons—

to shield us from the dreadful rain.

 

The mornings are too short

spent on the weight of endless chores—

scrubbing hands raw, standing in the ceaseless queues—

distracted from the unsaid fears that haunt our nights.

 

Where do we go when the land and sky trap us?

Where to shelter away from houses and tents?

On what road do we stop to unload this misery?

 

Also by Shaimaa:

A Scene at Rafah’s Beach

‘Resistance and the Palestinian Folk Song’

‘She Stretched Out Her Hand’: A Translator’s Tribute to Mourid Barghouti

Shaimaa Abulebda is a Palestinian scholar from Gaza. She has published in ArabLit Quarterly, ArabLit, Palestine Square, and Electronic Intifada

 

https://arablit.org/2025/01/02/new-poetry-the-tent-is-closing-in-on-us/ 

 

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Mosab Abu Toha of Palestine's newest book of poems Forest of Noise

Mosab Abu Toha of Palestine's newest book of poems Forest of Noise

Mosab Abu Toha

@MosabAbuToha

Mosab Abu Toha taught English at United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools in Gaza from 2016 until 2019, and is the founder of the Edward Said Library, the only English-language library in Gaza.^[5] In 2019-20 he was a visitor at Harvard University, as a Scholar-at-Risk Fellow at the Department of Comparative Literature,^[5] a librarian at the Houghton Library, and a fellow in the Harvard Divinity School.

Abu Toha is a columnist for Arrowsmith Press,^[6] and has written from Gaza for The Nation, Literary Hub, the New York Times,^[7] and The New Yorker.^[8]

His poems have been published on the Poetry Foundation website, and in publications which include Poetry Magazine, Banipal, Solstice, The Markaz Review, The New Arab, Peripheries, The New York Review,^[9] The Progressive,^[1] The New Yorker,^[10] and The Atlantic.^[11]

In 2022, he published his first book of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear (City Lights). It won the Palestine Book Award and an American Book Award. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Walcott Poetry Prize.^[1] The New York Times said, "Abu Toha’s accomplished debut contrasts scenes of political violence with natural beauty."^[12] For the National Book Critics Circle, Jacob Appel wrote, "What makes Abu Toha’s work resonate so strongly is his gift for the particular. By avoiding panoramic generalizations, he hones in upon evocative images that capture the larger plight of his people."^[13]

In 2023, Abu Toha was appointed to a visiting faculty position at Syracuse University through the Scholars at Risk network.^[14] He is currently serving as an instructor and writer in residence at The American University in Cairo for the Spring 2024 semester.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosab_Abu_Toha

In The New Yorker listen to his voice as Mosab Abu Toha reads his powerful poem Under the Rubble drawn from his most recent book “Forest of Noise.” #Gaza #Palestine #antiwar

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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/07/under-the-rubble-mosab-abu-toha-poem?_sp=aaeaad0f-d7d1-4da7-8831-0889bd50beab.1727867099098

Published in the print edition of the October 7, 2024, issue, with the headline “Under the Rubble.”

 

Mosab Abu Toha is a poet from Gaza. He is the author of “Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear” and “Forest of Noise.”

“Depth of Kinship”: Zeina Azzam’s Some Things Never Leave You BOOK REVIEW by Deema K. Shehabi

 

Photo of the author by Jeff Norman / ZeinaAzzam.com

Book Review

September 10, 2024

by  Deema K. Shehabi  -Deema K. Shehabi is a poet and editor. Her first book, Thirteen Departures from the Moon

In Zeina Azzam’s mesmerizing collection of poems Some Things Never Leave You (Tiger Bark Press, 2023), tenderness means gazing directly at what both cuts and fills you. A universal factor of human existence is the need to enter an expressive space, which distills moments from one’s life into essences. Whether it’s standing at a parent’s deathbed wondering when the next reunion with a dying beloved will be or rejoicing at a child’s ability to enunciate Arabic letters despite truncation from the foundational homeland (Palestine), Azzam deftly parses the threshold of joys and losses and renders them in a breathless lyricism.

In one of the seminal poems in the collection, “You Could Tell Yourself,” Azzam invites the reader into ... READ MORE  https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/book-reviews/depth-kinship-zeina-azzams-some-things-never-leave-you-deema-k-shehabi

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Because of Us... poem by Emily Berry + Democracy Now "As the WHO warns Gaza’s hospitals are becoming cemeteries, it’s time to heed the poets and the doctors, stop the killing, end the occupation, and dress the open wounds of war."

 

The Undressed Wounds of Gaza

"... The late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, as a child, survived the 1948 Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe,” when 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes and 15,000 were killed during Israel’s founding. Darwish lived much of his life in exile and was a critic of Hamas. He wrote in his poem, “To A Young Poet,”

“A poem in a difficult time
is beautiful flowers in a cemetery.”

As the WHO warns Gaza’s hospitals are becoming cemeteries, it’s time to heed the poets and the doctors, stop the killing, end the occupation, and dress the open wounds of war."  https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/16/the_undressed_wounds_of_gaza

To enjoy fireworks... No Explosions poem by Naomi Shihab Nye

 

Mosab Abu Toha poem On A Starless Night illustrated by artist Hannah Maguire

Mosab Abu Toha 

  ·

Artist Hannah Maguire does a new illustration of one of my poems.

 

“On a Starless Night”

 

So, so many similar and even worse starless nights

 

Prairie Schooner Fusion #12 Archives: Palestinian poets and poets from the back issues of the Schooner collaborate on a special portfolio of poetry exploring the theme of “Archive”...

 

https://prairieschooner.unl.edu/fusion-archives/fusion-12-archive/

“… I offer you this Palestinian archive of poems, a record of repeated exiles, of ongoing Nakba, a collection of poems that scrutinize the language rife with hierarchies aimed at undoing us.”    Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, from the Introduction

 

Four Illustrations   ^{Nidal El-Khairy}

_{Palestinian Suite}

Poetry

Inheritance

By leena aboutaleb

When the Arab Apocalypse Comes to America

By George Abraham

Before Gaza, a Fall

By Ahmad Al-Mallah

Immortal Sea, Your Sea

By Zeina Azzam

“It Was Not Yesterday But Today”

By Olivia Elias

THE FIGS ARE MOLDING

By Summer Farah

Dear […]

By Fady Joudah

POEM WITH GENOCIDE IN THE TITLE

By Emily Khilfeh

Untitled with a line from Etel Adnan

By A.D. Lauren-Abunassar

Let The Naïve Know How We Envy Them

By Sara Abou Rashed

Sun Theater Sonnets

By Deema K. Shehabi

Abjadarian* in Autumn

By Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

SEA LEGS

By Priscilla Wathington

A Certain Resilience

By Issam Zineh

 

 “Archives and archiving can offer poetic material and process for articulating presences and histories and trajectories tethered to truth.”   Siwar Masannat

© 2024 Prairie Schooner

 https://prairieschooner.unl.edu/fusion-archives/fusion-12-archive/

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