“Away from the lamp lie truths which are uncomfortable it seems not only to Zionists but also to those who fear a direct confrontation with the Jewish state. There in the darkness one can find the only relevant framing of the conflict in Palestine: as a struggle between a settler-colonialist movement and a native indigenous population that has raged since the late nineteenth century until today”. — Ilan Pappé in On Palestine
As we post this, Israel is conducting a genocidal bombardment on Gaza. Given our platform, small in comparison to many as it may be, we feel we must preface this post thus. We do, and always will, stand with Palestine and its people, with their right to self-determination and freedom from colonisation.
If you’re sat, wondering where to start in educating yourself, or how best to help, we offer a list of a few nonfiction books to start with for the former, and for the latter, some resources for writing to your local MP (or other representative) and organising your own protest locally, if there isn’t one near you. To find out about protests near you, we’d recommend following groups local to you fighting for Palestinian freedom such as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Nonfiction books we recommend: The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, Ten Myths About Israel, Voices from the Camps, Lawrence in Arabia, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History, Nakba, The Palestine Nakba, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions.
And what actually prompted this particular rec list, is a tweet we saw. On October 18 at 8 pm ET, there’s going to be a virtual gathering/poem-sharing/call to action/fundraiser for Medical Aid for Palestinians. So first of all, here’s a link to RSVP, and second of all, here’s some poetry for you.
Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow.
Noor Hindi
Goodreads
Rep: Palestinian American lesbian poet
My Favourite Quote
I know I’m American because when I walk into a room something dies.
Metaphors about death are for poets who think ghosts care about sound.
When I die, I promise to haunt you forever.
One day, I’ll write about the flowers like we own them.
Non-Essential Work
Omar Sakr
Goodreads
Rep: Arab Australian Muslim bisexual poet
My Favourite Quote
I was warned about this, not to touch
the absence. It will be filled by anotherkind of warmth if left alone; the train
occasionally whispers such things.I write my father’s name on the window,
touching the absence.
Madness
Sam Sax
Goodreads
Rep: Jewish gay poet
My Favourite Quote
i’d like to believe the soil remembers us,
that all that semen grew something :a statue in the shape of a syringe
a marble-wet trembling bottom lipthere’s a reason the flowers
in fukushima grow two-headedthat this whole godforsaken country’s tumored over
with fast food & faster cars
The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On
Franny Choi
Goodreads
Rep: Asian American queer poet
My Favourite Quote
Lord, I confess I want the clarity of catastrophe but not the catastrophe.
Like everyone else, I want a storm I can dance in.
I want an excuse to change my life.
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities
Chen Chen
Goodreads
Rep: Chinese American gay poet
My Favourite Quote
I wish I could write an elegy for my sadness
because it has suddenly died. I wish I could mourn it
by kissing you again & again while neither of us
can stop laughing, a kind of kiss where we sometimes
miss the mouth altogether, a kind of kiss
I think every single dead person
in every part of the world must crave with violent impossibility.
Postcolonial Love Poem
Natalie DÃaz
Goodreads
Rep: Native American queer poet
My Favourite Quote
Manganese, lodestone,
ores the light will not touch, so we touch the light—
give it to one another
until we are riddled and leaking with it.
Birthright
George Abraham
Goodreads
Rep: Palestinian American queer poet
My Favourite Quote
somewhere, a patient God holds the universe
with our tiny bodies, ravaging in his arms;
somewhere, our children wake up & become music
like dabke was just another word for morning prayer
Prayers for My 17th Chromosome
Amir Rabiyah
Goodreads
Rep: multi-racial trans disabled queer poet
My Favourite Quote
I tell him I love him
I tell him I feel a sea
parting inside of meI ask him to forgive me
for any sins that made this sea
I tell him the riptide hurts even more
than when the mean
boy twists my arm
Sacrament of Bodies
Romeo Oriogun
Goodreads
Rep: Nigerian bisexual poet
My Favourite Quote
In your room, your father smashes our bones against the wall,
our blood mingles, sings kumbaya as it streaks into the rug.
Tell me this is not love,
tell me this is not how couples run into sunsets.
Disintegrate/Dissociate
Arielle Twist
Goodreads
Rep: Cree Two-Spirit trans poet
My Favourite Quote
There is so much I can’t speak
with this tongue longing to see
if colonization tastes the same on you.
If I kiss the tears off your face
will I remember the salt in mine
and forgive them?
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