Refaat Alareer, Mosab Abu Toha - Discussing Things You May Find in My Ear (2022)

Refaat Alareer: Hello everyone, this is Refaat Alareer from the Islamic University of Gaza. This is an online talk with a friend, a Palestinian Gazan poet, published poet, and award-winning poet, Musab Abu Toha. He's currently in America doing his MA. Hopefully he's going to be back soon, and hopefully he's going to join us at the department to teach literature. Musab is a graduate of the Islamic University English department, which means we are proud of him more than anything else, and hopefully he's proud of the years he spent at the Islamic University of Gaza. This— in my English course, Musab, I usually tell you this. In addition to hopefully equipping my students with the critical, significant critical and creative thinking skills, I give them the choice to write their own poetry. I encourage them to attempt to write poetry during the class. I show them how poets craft and make poetry. Even in the introduction to the book, there are stories of, you know, exercises of the images in movement, the haikus in Japan, exercises— almost every poem has this question: can you write a parody? Can you reply to this? Poem in the form of a boat. And I have received tens of poems from most— many students, which is something really interesting. I personally loved some of these poems and included them in the midterm exams, which is something some students liked. Today we have Musab Abu Toha with his very important, very famous A book of poetry, Diwan Sher, Things You May Find in My Ear. Maybe you will be surprised about the title of the book, but we listen to his story. There's no Palestine here on the COVID but there is— everything is all about Palestine and Musab growing up. So we listen to his experience. We listen to him reciting poems he likes, he wants to share with us.

Khaled: Thank you.

Refaat Alareer: And then we'll have a question and answer session, and hopefully we have a couple of students who would want to share their short poems that they wrote in my class or outside the class. Musab, the floor is yours.

Mosab Abu Toha: Go on. Okay, first of all, thank you, Refaat, for having me here talk to your students. And I'm really jealous because you are teaching them and you are encouraging them to write poetry in particular. So during my study years at the Islamic University of Gaza, I never wrote any poem. No one, I mean, encouraged me or told me that I could write my own poems. So you are lucky, I think, to be able to write in your classes.

Mahmoud Al-Qassas: Thank you.

Mosab Abu Toha: Something that other people do not have the chance to do. So my name is Musab Abu Toha. I was born in Ashat refugee camp in 1992. I lived the first years of my life in the refugee camp, and then we moved to Beit Lahia, which is a rural town in the north of Gaza. So that experience of moving from a very tiny place into another place where there are lots of trees and lots of animals. I think it affected how I started to see the world. And my experience of traveling abroad also widened my view of the world. I mean, one of the things that I keep telling now here that I am in America, so I'm lucky to be able to meet with some well-established poets. I mean, just a few days ago, I met with an American Armenian poet by the name of Peter Balakian, and he won the Pulitzer Prize, which is something like a Nobel in America for poetry. So I told him, one of the things I told him about is that we as Gazans, we as Palestinians, are deprived of our right to see our country from the sky. So people in the world are free to travel, and sometimes they are able to see the towns where they grew up. But for us in Gaza, in Palestine, we do not have airports. So this is something that I want to do in my life, to see the refugee camp from the plane while I'm traveling freely with no troubles. So the— my collection, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, Has poems that I wrote while I was in Gaza. I first left Gaza in 2019 for a fellowship at Harvard, which lasted for 10 months, and then I moved to Syracuse, which is in New York State. I'm doing my Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. And then I returned to Gaza last year, as my classes here were online, so I thought of returning to Gaza and being with my family. So I wrote more poems there, and I lived through the May 19th—

Mahmoud Al-Qassas: Yeah.

Mosab Abu Toha: the May 2021 attack, which lasted for 11 days. So I wrote poems during that, that war, and then I moved again here to the U.S. So the poems that I have written were written in Gaza after I graduated from the English department in 2014. And by the way, in 2014, it was the graduation— Yeah. Year for me. But the Islamic University was targeted by the Israeli bombs, and the English department, which I used to visit and see my instructors, was critically damaged and in ruins. So I— so one of the things that I did in Gaza after the 2014 war is establishing the Edward Said Public Library. And one of the famous photos that I used was of me holding the Norton Anthology of American Literature, which it turned out belongs to Dr. Refaat. So that photo helped me form an idea and encouraged me to convince people that I want to establish a public library, which was named the Edward Said Public Library. So that was, that was something very important for me, and it helped me connect with other people outside Gaza, with poets, with publishers— not publishers, with authors, with poets. I mean, very well-known poets. And one of the people I connected with was Noam Chomsky, who came to Gaza in 2012. So I was a sophomore at the time. So the title of my book is Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear. And this poem has a story. Someone says that Dr. Refaat told you about it, but I might want to add something. So maybe this poem will be the first poem I will read, because I think so. I think that everything in the book and everything that you can tell is something that's been in your ear.

Fatma: It's—

Mosab Abu Toha: I mean, our ears experience lots of things, whether They are sad memories or sweet memories. So I think everyone in every poem in this book is something that's been in my ear, whether the sound of explosions, the sound of the drone, the buzzing drones in the sky, the sound of the sea, the waves of the sea lapping against the shore, whether it's my son screaming or laughing. It's everything. So, So I had a surgery on my ear. That was in 2020, yeah? So a few years after— a few months after I came here. So I had a surgery on my ear. So I wrote something like a poem to my doctor, to the surgeon who did the surgery to me. So that was the first part of the poem.

Khaled: OK.

Mosab Abu Toha: So the poem has 2 sections, and I'm going to share the screen with you. Can you make me a co-host?

Refaat Alareer: You are now the host.

Mosab Abu Toha: Oh, okay. And you still have the right—

Refaat Alareer: You have absolute power now.

Mosab Abu Toha: Okay, many thanks. Temporarily, I mean. Okay, so I'm sharing my screen now. So this is my desktop, A Flower in the Ruins. I mean, it was a coincidence that this particular poem has the same number as my year of birth, 1992. So the poem is on page 92. So I sent the first part to my doctor, and she liked it. And then I continued with the second section. So, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, for Alicia Kusnel, 1. When you open my ear, touch it gently. My mother's voice lingers somewhere inside. Her voice is the echo that helps me recover equilibrium when I feel— 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 the books on your shelf. So that that was the the section I sent to the doctor, and she liked it very much. And then I thought of so these are the things that I wanted to be kept and returned to my back to my ears after the surgery. And then I thought of asking my doctor for. an extra thing, which is getting rid of some things that have been in my ear for, for my whole life.

Fatma: 2.

Mosab Abu Toha: 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 tiny ear canal of them all. Spray the perfume of your smiles on the incision.

Muhammad Zahir: Thank you.

Mosab Abu Toha: Inject the song of life into my vein to wake me up. Gently beat the drum so my mind may dance with yours, my doctor, day and night. Okay, so this is the first— this is one of the first poems that I wrote after I came to the U.S. Another poem which I think is original, I don't think many other poets used the form that I used here. So I thought of creating my own dictionary as someone who was born in Gaza in Palestine. So I wrote the first poem in the collection is called Palestine AZ. So I'm going to read some sections so you have an idea of my dictionary. Palestine. So for each— so there are 26 letters in the English alphabet. So for each letter I give 2 words in my dictionary. And I wrote about what these words mean to me. So, for example, in letter A, there is the word apple in the first part, and then am. So, A, an apple that fell from the table on a dark evening when man-made lightning flashed through the kitchen, the street, and the sky, rattling the cupboards and breaking the dishes. Am is the linking verb that follows I in the present tense. When I am no longer present, when I am shattered. A book that doesn't mention my language or my country and has maps of every place except for my birthplace, as if I were an illegitimate child on Mother Earth. Borders are those invented lines drawn with ash on maps and sewn into the ground by bullets. Gaza is a city where tourists gather to take photos, next to destroyed buildings or graveyards. A country that exists only in my mind. Its flag has no room to fly freely, but there is space on the coffins of my countrymen. So sometimes I use some Arabic words. So for example, di, dar. Dar means house. So my grandparents were from Jaffa, and Jaffa is also my daughter's name. So dar Means house. My grandparents left their house behind in 1948 near Jaffa Beach. A tree my father told me about stood in the front yard. Dreams of children and their parents of listening to songs or watching plays at Al-Mis'hal Cultural Center. Israel destroyed it in August 2018. I hate August, but the plays are still performed in Gaza.

Israa: Thank you.

Mosab Abu Toha: Gaza is the stage. Okay, so that's— this is one poem. So it's a long poem.

Refaat Alareer: Can I choose a letter? So you—

Mosab Abu Toha: Yeah.

Refaat Alareer: Random?

Mosab Abu Toha: Yeah.

Refaat Alareer: Go for the R letter.

Mosab Abu Toha: Refaat, okay. R, Michelle.

Israa: Okay.

Refaat Alareer: I love this poem, by the way. It's a beautiful, beautifully written, really.

Mosab Abu Toha: You know, one friend from London I met when I went to London early last month, she said—

Refaat Alareer: The one who took your pen? Or someone else?

Mosab Abu Toha: No, a real friend. Okay, a real friend. So my friend whose name is Alison, not Alison Becker, the goalkeeper of Liverpool, but Alison, a woman, she said, I have an idea, and she did it on her Facebook. She said, I'm going to select the letters that compose my name and put them on Facebook. So her name Alison, so Refaat, you would Pick up my— the R letter, the A letter, the F letter from the poem and post them on your Facebook. So, R. I was born in November. My mother told me she was walking on the beach with my father. It turned stormy and began to rain. My mother felt pain, and an hour later she gave birth to me. I love rain and the sea, the last 2 things I heard before I came into this horrible world.

Refaat Alareer: Can, can we ask some of the students in attendance to choose a letter randomly? You see how a simple thing, just the letter, how it brings a whole poem, a whole thing. Somebody—

Mosab Abu Toha: I think every— I think everyone can write his own Palestine easy, but you should make sure to say, to say after Musab Abu Toha, so people know that you wrote it after me. You are not the originator of the poem.

Refaat Alareer: So Jude is giving you a very strange number, a letter, which is Z. Can you go for Z?

Alia: OK.

Mosab Abu Toha: Some people would go to X and Z because there are few words.

Refaat Alareer: Exactly.

Mosab Abu Toha: OK, Z. What is Z to me? Z, when I was in the 5th grade, our science teacher wanted us to visit a zoo to see the animals, listen to their sounds, watch how they walk and sleep. When I went there, they were bored, gave me their back. They lived in cages, in a caged place. We use a zero article with most proper nouns. My name and that of my country have an extra zero in front, like when you call overseas. But when— but we have been pulled down beneath the seas. Do you see what I mean?

Refaat Alareer: Latifa.

Mosab Abu Toha: Can you pick? Yeah, I had random— it was not easy to choose the letters for Z and X also, you know. X has very few, but I can do the X one because it was difficult for me to choose the words. So for the X, when I was wounded— so this is a real thing, I was wounded— when I was wounded in January '29, I was 16. I was taken to hospital and x-rayed For the first time, there were 2 pieces of shrapnel in my body, one in my neck, another in my forehead. 7 months later, I had my first surgery to remove them. I was still a child. For Christmas, a friend gave the kids a xylophone. So the xylophone is the toy you can hit with something, and you can hear something. So it's a children's toy. For Christmas, a friend gave the kids a xylophone. It had one wooden row. The bars were of different lengths and colors: red, yellow, green, blue, purple, and white. The kids showed it to their grandparents back in Gaza, whose eyes danced while the kids smiled.

Refaat Alareer: Jamin, would you like to pick another letter or go for something else?

Mosab Abu Toha: If someone wants to pick a letter, I can—we can see what we have.

Refaat Alareer: Just one more letter: tea. Tea.

Mosab Abu Toha: Tea, شاي يعني. Yes, sir. Okay. In summer, I drink tea with mint. In winter, I add dried sage. Sage marimia. Anyone who visits, even if it's a neighbor knocking at the door to ask about what day or date it is, I offer them tea. Offering tea. Is like saying marhaba. They once said Palestine will be free tomorrow. When is tomorrow? What is freedom? How long does it last? Okay, I will go for another poem. So you know the Rasen Kanafani. What is home? ما هو الوطن. So in in in Rasen Kanafani, it was ما هو الوطن. What is homeland? So here, home, whether it's a real home where you live. Or the home where we all as Palestinians live. So what is home? What is home? Okay. It is the shade of trees on my way to school before they were uprooted. It is my grandparents' black and white wedding photo before the walls crumbled. It is my uncle's prayer rug where dozens of ants slept on wintry nights before it was looted and put in a museum.

Rihalya: Thank you.

Mosab Abu Toha: It is the oven my mother used to bake bread and roast chicken before a bomb reduced our house to ashes. It is the café where I watched football matches and played— my child stops me. Can a 4-letter word hold all of these? OK. I posted this poem yesterday on Facebook, and it got a lot of attention from friends. My grandfather was a terrorist. So I posted it after I watched the film, the film Farha, about Palestinians being expelled and executed at the hands of the Zionist gangs. So maybe you can look at my account and you can read it. Many people thought it was very moving. So this poem, My Grandfather and Home, was published by Poetry Magazine, which is the most— the very most important poetry magazine in the world.

Muhammad Zahir: Wow.

Mosab Abu Toha: which was started in 1912. So it's about 100 years old, more than 100. So you can look this up and you can read it. I'm looking for— so in the book— so I'm a lover of taking photos. I have about 30,000 photos on my phone. So I'm a writer and I'm also a photo taker.

Fatma: Wow.

Mosab Abu Toha: So I take photos of the sea, of the sunset, of the cat, of the rose, of destroyed buildings, of a hole in the ground, of myself, of my family, whatever. So, so my, my publisher thought that it would be a brilliant idea if I— if we could include a chain of photo poems. So photo poems. So I— we include— we decided— Yeah. We selected eight photos, and for each photo I had to write something like a small poem. I'm going to show you. So this one I took after the May 2021 attack. So it was in the house of a friend of mine. So you can see the mirror is shattered here. So I wrote below the photo, "Where is the rest of me shattered?" Another poem. So this poem, this photo is from a Tanani family house, which was destroyed, and the whole family— I wrote a poem, I will read it later. So the Tanani family is the 2 parents and their 4 children who were killed under the rubble of their house. That was in Sheikh Zayed area. So I went to the area and I saw this bathtub. Oh, wow. And I wrote, when a shower of stones isn't enough, a sky of stones might be. So the sky of stones is the ceiling itself. So the ceiling of that room or that bathroom just embraced that and filled that bathtub. And this is a photo I took from the Al-Wahda Street, where the Ashkontana family, Abu al-Auf family, were killed. So I wrote— so you see, there are no longer rooms here. So I wrote below this photo, the scent of coffee still hangs in the air, but where is the kitchen? So you see, here is something, the kitchen, but where is the kitchen? We can't see it anymore. So this is a funny, sad poem. I took this photo in 2014. So this is Abu Hussein Honorable School in North Gaza. So the title of the poem is Midterm Test. They are going for penalties now. The Moroccans. So, Midterm Test. The question is, when a drone follows you on your way to school, what is it doing? A, it's keeping an eye on you so you won't get hit by a car. It's watching in case you lose your pocket money on the way. C, it's counting your footsteps to make sure you are getting your daily exercise. Or D, it's covering your head in case an F-16 drops a bomb on your— on you by mistake.

Refaat Alareer: Beautiful pictures, especially the picture of the strawberries.

Mosab Abu Toha: I know you're going to say this.

Refaat Alareer: We have, uh, we are going to listen to more poems, hopefully. We still have like 20 minutes or so.

Mosab Abu Toha: Uh, okay.

Refaat Alareer: Yeah, can, uh, is anybody out there willing to share, uh, a poem, especially those, uh, the poems I praised On Facebook, many of you said they wanted to, to read their poetry. Anyone there?

Mahmoud: Yes, I would love to read one.

Refaat Alareer: Go on, read one, but just one, Mahmoud, so we can have time for others to—

Mahmoud: Okay. You once liked a poem I wrote, so I'm going to read it. Okay, just a minute because the internet is so beautiful. Okay, it goes like this. Should I put it in the chat?

Refaat Alareer: Yeah, good idea. Go on, read.

Mahmoud: As it hits, I hurt. Gripping my soul, it hurts. Shivers, aches, pain, and loss. Open the curtains. Redemption, angels, and God. Light and sublimes in my head. I'm shaking. Light— I'm sorry. Light. Is this the end? I'm shaking again. Losing. Again, it's been a long fight. The curtains shall remain closed. The light shall break. I'm waiting, indisposed.

Refaat Alareer: Okay, good job. Who else? Anybody else?

Speaker 11: Yes, I would love to share my poem. Okay, so I will share the poem that, uh, you put in the midterm exam.

Mosab Abu Toha: Shall I share it in the chat too?

Refaat Alareer: Yeah, that would be cool, so we can also follow the text.

Tasnim: Okay. Okay.

Speaker 11: So it's a parody replying to Wyatt's Who So List to Hunt. You see me, sir, from far away. I am immune to being hunted. You see me, sir, yet I won't obey. I will not be the maid you wanted. I will go, sir, straight on my way. I won't follow your strict orders. I will go, sir, and sing and play. I won't be surrounded by your soldiers. The phoenix in me will always rise too high, and no one will take it along. You won't get me like some prize, because in me there is a soul born strong. So you should know, sir, that I am free, and nobody owns me but me.

Refaat Alareer: Okay, beautiful parody, also in the form of a sonnet. That's very challenging. Someone else? Thank you.

Mosab Abu Toha: Thank you. Thank you for sharing.

Refaat Alareer: Alia, go on. Alia, we can't hear you.

Mosab Abu Toha: This is typical of Gazan internet. Do you hear me?

Refaat Alareer: Are you on, on your phone or internet connection? Is it— is this your phone package? Go on. Can hear you now. Go on.

Alia: Yes, my phone. Can you hear me now? Okay. Wake up. Bombs blasting here and there. I could not see in the darkness but the flashing crimson light on the shattered glass. Bombs Bombs blasting here and there. Your tiny fingers pressed my hand. We both closed our eyes and wished to sleep tonight. Bombs blasting here. Your fingers dropped my hand. Bombs blasting here. I could not see, but your bright eyes closed. Bombs blasting here, and I— I'm sorry. I could not hear a thing but your heart taking its last drops of blood. They were blasting here. I heard nothing but the sound of my heart murmuring its lifelong agony. Thank you.

Refaat Alareer: Beautiful. Thank you. Very moving as well. Well, also, maybe we can at the end listen to a bit of advice from Musab. Who else? Some— many of you posted, already posted poems on Facebook. Do you want to share? Khaled, go on.

Khaled: Um, this is a poem I wrote when I was, uh, Sufi Moor, second year.

Refaat Alareer: Um, have you, uh, touched it later on? Did you refine it, Khaled? Uh, or did you keep it as it is?

Khaled: No, I kept it as it is. It was post—

Refaat Alareer: I posted it on the Facebook I think this is usually good, but as you grow, as you mature, as your English improves, it's always good to go back. There's nothing wrong with, you know, refining a text you already wrote. It's good to keep, to keep, to save the old texts, the old versions of you, and then—

Khaled: Yeah, I have, I have, I have poems I wrote in the first year and the grammar crying. I'm crying at them.

Refaat Alareer: Go on, go on with this one.

Mosab Abu Toha: Yeah, just, just wait, wait, sorry. Yeah, so Morocco scored 2, Spain lost 2, wasted 2 chances. Yeah, so now 2-0.

Refaat Alareer: Yeah, one goal, Morocco wins.

Mosab Abu Toha: Yes, since you wasted—

Refaat Alareer: Yeah, this is good for Portugal, by the way, for, uh—

Mosab Abu Toha: Well, who knows? I mean, Spain is better than Portugal, but let's see. But it's good. This is this would be the first time that Morocco is up to the next round of eight. You know, it would be the first African team.

Refaat Alareer: An Arab also an Arab team. I think no. Yeah. Senegal was last of eight in 2010, I guess, when when they were defeated by by Paraguay. Paraguay.

Mosab Abu Toha: Sorry. I don't I don't remember. But anyway, but okay. Sorry, Khaled.

Refaat Alareer: Do you want to take? Do you want to take a pause? Let's let's wait a couple of minutes. Zoom recording, so this is recorded. But oh, I'm not sure if Facebook is going to keep it. Hamdulillah, hamdulillah. مبروك مبروك مبروك.

Mosab Abu Toha: Okay. Okay. Sorry, we cut someone. Someone was.

Refaat Alareer: مبروك. Hopefully they're going to beat Portugal. We go back to you. We have 10 minutes, guys, so we are going to listen to a couple of poems. Khaled Mahmoud already posted something.

Khaled: Um, puns I love, the soul maiden, hence my eyes and soul beaten, sublime hall with no bit mess. 5 feet tall and not a less accurate eye blink haunts me nightly with no latency. Her name was, was clear as dew, so special but not that new. Stakeness betwixt us, senseless and preposterous. Should I dare to make her cry? It's rare to break her snare. To behold that fairness, few said she's clear as dew.

Refaat Alareer: Okay, thank you, Khaled. Very good. I'm sure the ones— if you notice Mus'ab's poems, you don't have to follow the rules 100%. There is the movement nowadays is mostly of the free kind of verse rather than the one that sticks to the rhyme, especially the rhyme, because sometimes the meaning— let's see Mahmoud Al-Qassas.

Mahmoud Al-Qassas: Well, this short, very short poem is based on My own experience. I witnessed my house shelling when I was 13 or 14 years old. So it begins with, it was short, it was tardy, we had that call, I was asleep. My room was untidy. Mom faced me to leave.

Refaat Alareer: It was—

Mahmoud Al-Qassas: The war called. It was the end of me. I became none. And then the war ended. Yet my room was already gone. Now my mind is untidy. That's it.

Refaat Alareer: Thank you very much. I think this is a good job as well. Radwan, quickly.

Radwan: Okay. Father is farm. Father is free. With occupation come, he is still. He harvest olives every ruin, every ruin in spring and winter. The olive will stay, my father said. Fig and olive forever around the border. Orange to love, lemon brave, wheat every year against the ice. Mother, have a stretch and let's see around the home. After the war, after the ruin, watermelon, And spinach with war or after the war, she stays like old and tired.

Mosab Abu Toha: Thank you very very much.

Refaat Alareer: Anybody else posted a text? Tasnim quickly last one hopefully. We yeah, yeah, there will be ten minutes for questions. Go on Tasnim. We go back to Mufa.

Tasnim: Okay. Okay. It is titled Miss Injection Injection. Sorry, injunctions. Uh, every time I entered her room, I felt to be in a hospital, but many smiles are crowded here. Every time I smell the room air, an imagination pulled me there. Am I accepting the other, or I'm othering it? Every Thursday, I avidly enter the room looking for it, yet I replaced and left.

Refaat Alareer: Okay, thank you very much. Some of you wanted— told me they want to ask questions. Rihalya, go on.

Rihalya: Okay, my question is, how do a writer overcome the vulnerability of publishing his first work, and is it really worth it? I mean, the writing process is so draining, and And I don't know, I've been thinking about it so much. It's really draining for me, especially when it comes to subjects that I have faced before, emotions I have encountered. So my question is, is it really worth it in the end?

Mosab Abu Toha: Well, OK, so the most important thing is that what you write is worth it for you. When you write something, you don't usually think of having it published out of your computer or your notebook. So the most important thing is that you are convinced of what you are doing. First of all, when I started writing, I was writing for my own— so writing is about documenting your feelings and what you see around you. So this is the most important thing. The second very important thing is for you as a writer to share your work with other writers. I mean writers who are more experienced than you or writers whose language you use to write your own poems. So for example, before I left Gaza I was in touch with some writers, with some poets, I used to send them my work to get feedback from them. I used to collaborate with other artists. So for example, one artist from England wanted to use— How to make this contact?

Speaker 11: Sorry for the interruption, but how to make this contact with other writers?

Mosab Abu Toha: I think social media is very important. You can send maybe friend requests to other people you think who might be interested in your work. I mean, there are many Palestinians who live outside Palestine, and especially in Europe and America. You can send them a friend request. If you have your email, if you have their email, you can email them and introduce yourself. Hey, my name is Fatima or Nada or Alia, and I'm I'm a young Palestinian writer from Gaza, and I would like to share my work with you. So you would introduce yourself. You can find their contact information on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, or from their websites. So I think you have to do some work searching for these people who you think may be interested in starting a relationship, a writerly relationship. So it's not a personal one. It's you want to share with them something that you think is worthy of telling to other people. So it starts— I mean, so if you ask me, I've never imagined that I would be here in the U.S. or I would have, I mean, such a broad relationship with very well-known writers. I mean, I got to know some writers without realizing who they are, you know. I met Stephen Greenblatt, who was the—

Rihalya: Right.

Mosab Abu Toha: the most powerful Shakespearean scholar in the world without knowing that he was that big man, you know. So I met him at Harvard and we had lunch. He invited me over lunch and we started that relationship. And I sent him one poem that I'm— I want to share with you, which is a response to Sonnet 18. So I mean, when you, when you start a relationship, it's, it's not usually that you want something from that other person. It could be a friendship and then— Right. You would start sharing your work and maybe reading also their work. I mean, it's good of you to read some of the works by other Palestinian or English authors, American authors, and then send them an email or a letter saying, hey, I read your book and I really love it, and I wonder if you are willing to, to look at my work. You know, you, you have to initiate. You have to start writing to other people in the world. I hope my response was a good one.

Fatma: Uh, I have a question.

Refaat Alareer: Wait a minute, wait a minute, uh, because we already studied Sonnet 18.

Mosab Abu Toha: Okay, so I'll paste it. Okay, I will paste it here in the chat. So, you know, uh, Shakespeare's poem, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day? So I wrote this poem, Gazan Response to Sonnet 18. So Bill is the nickname of anyone who is named William. Yes, Bill, compare me to a summer's day. Wherever is safer and warmer, put me in. Alas, I doubt your sonnets will be protected from F-16 bombs falling day and night. Shakespeare, your words and lines wanted me to live eternally, yet I perished soaked in blood. Your punctuation marks stumbled and fell In dust under the rubble and shrapnel flood. So long as drones buzz and bombs explode. So short live I, and death brags it, my lord. More bombs are falling. No time to complete the sonnet. Sorry, Bill, I mean Shakespeare. Time to disappear.

Refaat Alareer: Okay, thank you. That's a really interesting parody, kind of parody. Who else wants to ask a question? Probably we have time for a couple of questions.

Fatma: Yeah, I have a question.

Mosab Abu Toha: Briefly.

Fatma: I read about— yeah, I read about you in a newspaper, and you said that anyone, any writer must have a reader or a judgment in his works, right? So you said that my works was famous by others, by other poets. So how do you publish your work, like, internationally and have, like, more than one prize? So another question that—

Refaat Alareer: Only one question, Fatma.

Fatma: Just how— another one, another one.

Refaat Alareer: No, Fatma, only one question. We have other people waiting. Go on, Tareq.

Mosab Abu Toha: OK, so I think the first poem that I ever published was in Banipal magazine. Which is the very important— which is a very important magazine that publishes Arabic literature in English. So it's been there for 20 years. So I reached out to the publisher, I introduced myself, hello, my name is Musab, I'm from Gaza, and I wonder if you accept, if you would consider receiving some poems for publication. And they responded to me with yes. Yeah, so, so I used— so after I published this, a couple of poems with Banipel magazine, I started reaching out to other magazines. Hey, my name is Musab and I have a couple of poems published with Banipel. So you start to build your resume, your introduction about yourself, and say, hey, I published 2 poems, one in Banipel and one in Poetry magazine. So it starts with something small and then you build it up, you build it up. Before you go on and publish your book. So I mean, no one can reach out or be reached out about publishing a poetry book without having some of his poems published in magazines and websites. I mean, these websites should be also well-read. I mean, it's not a small press or a small website that only 2 or 3 people read. No. So it was a grad a gradual process. It was a step by step. So I would advise you starting to— I mean, in America, it's, it's really a great country. So there are, there are contests, uh, for writers. So there, there are, there is something called the chapbook, which is a very small, uh, collection of poetry, let's say 11 or, or 15 poems. So you would enter that contest. Let's say you pay $25 as a fee to this contest. And about, I mean, 100, maybe 100 or 200 or 500 people would, would submit their work to that same contest, Al-Musabqa. If you win that contest, you will get your chapbook published and you will get a sum of money and you will, you will get also copies of your book. So this is called a chapbook and there are many contests that that allow young writers to publish their first book. So maybe this is a chance. If you see yourself as a great, a good, a very good poet, you might want to go online and see chapbook contests and apply and see where your work takes you.

Refaat Alareer: Thank you very much. Do we have a couple of questions?

Israa: Yes, I can.

Refaat Alareer: Briefly also, briefly please.

Rihalya: Okay.

Tasnim: Like, when I have an idea to write, I always have ideas to write, but actually, when I'm going to write it, actually, I like put the idea in like only 10 lines, and almost they are like short to medium in length. So I always try to make them longer, but I think that I'm getting failure.

Mahmoud Al-Qassas: Yeah.

Tasnim: Okay, so, well, is there any advice?

Mosab Abu Toha: It's not, it's not, it's not, it's not always good to have a long poem, because if you are going to have a long poem, it means that this long poem should be very powerful. You cannot just lengthen the poem because you want it to be long. No, you just write what you write, and if there's something that needs building on, more images, let's say, more emotions, you can, you can make it longer. But I, in the book, I have very short poems. For example, I have a poem called Rebel Salary, which is about, I think, 7 lines. And I also have this Seven Fingers, also it's a 7-line poem. So this one, Rebel Salary, you see it's very small. So as long as you have your your idea and your emotion in that short poem, it's fine. You should not be focusing on having a long poem. Sometimes, you know, there is a very famous poem by Ezra Pound, uh, the, the— about the faces in the, in the train station. You remember it, Abu Omar?

Refaat Alareer: Which one?

Mosab Abu Toha: The one by Ezra Pound.

Refaat Alareer: Yeah, about the metro.

Mosab Abu Toha: Yeah, the metro. It's, I think, 2 or 3 lines.

Refaat Alareer: We studied this. Yeah, the The apparitions of these deities are something with black bow.

Mosab Abu Toha: Yeah, yeah. So it's one of the most famous poems in the world. It's been written about— I mean, books have been written maybe, or articles have been written about these 3 or 4 lines. And there is also the other poem by William Carlos Williams about the red wheelbarrow. So sometimes short poems have more power than long poems, you know? So you should not be concerned about the length of the poem. No.

Refaat Alareer: I posted the poem. It's already in the poetry book.

Mosab Abu Toha: It's 2 lines.

Refaat Alareer: The apparition of these faces in the crowd, beetles on a wet black bow.

Mosab Abu Toha: Yeah.

Refaat Alareer: Which— some of the students are asking if they can buy the book. Which bookshop is it at?

Mosab Abu Toha: Yeah, it's at Shurouq Bookshop. It's yeah, it's close to the to the Ferris no gas station.

Refaat Alareer: Don't say Ferris gas station. Don't say next to the Jama'a. Say next to Zahran full of falafel and if it's okay okay.

Mosab Abu Toha: Where's the building with Zahran?

Refaat Alareer: Al-Widad. Al-Widad. Yeah, yeah, there is a— the bookshop is already there. I think we have one text. Israa Mashrawi wants to read her poem very quickly. Israa, if you are there. Someone else sent me, uh, Hamad Zahir, and then a final poem, probably a final note from Musa. Go on, Israa.

Israa: Okay, my mom came from Jaffa.

Tasnim: Seashells.

Israa: Cover all the time the waves of our stolen sea. My grandma keeps her key and I keep my seashell. My grandma keeps the key around her neck and tells me our home is beside the sea. I keep my seashell on my ear and hear the sea. Grandma, a seashell is a key. I hear home. Grandma, you are the sound of the land. I am the I am the seashell. A sound in a seashell never die. Then when we return back, me, the seashell, tie this her home, my home, our land.

Mosab Abu Toha: Thank you very much. Shukran. Many thanks. Many thanks. Very happy one. Thank you.

Refaat Alareer: Muhammad, are you there? Muhammad Zahir?

Muhammad Zahir: Yes, I'm here, doctor. Go on, sir. Salaam alaikum. With other children in the street and the background. In happiness, joy, and glad, spending the time till the sun goes down and going back quickly to the doorstep to catch his father's hand when he comes back and telling him how the day was. Suddenly the boy shouts and cries, raising his eyes towards the sky. Goodbye, Dad! Goodbye, Dad! From now on, the boy will not stand at the doorstep. Thank you.

Refaat Alareer: Thank you very much, Mohamed. Thanks for sharing. Uh, Musab, probably you want to comment briefly on these poems you heard generally. What pieces of advice would you give these young promising poets of tomorrow?

Mosab Abu Toha: Inshallah. So, uh, I would advise, uh, all of you, including myself, to, to read, uh, more poetry, more modern poetry. You should go to Poetry Foundation's website. You have to—I mean, because what we study at universities, it's about the form, the meter, the rhyme, the stanza form. So I think in the world, it's now in the world, on the world stage of poetry, the form that is being used is the free verse. So you would—you would control how you feel and put it on the page. You are not. Confined by the form of the poem, of the classic form of the poem. So I think you should— you need to read more modern poems. So there is a Palestinian famous poet named Naomi Shihab Nye. She writes only in English. There are other poems. We have Suheir Hammad, whose book I have here with me, Born Palestinian, Born Black. So I'm going to read this book. I haven't read it so far. There are other poets, Palestinians, Arabs, Americans. You need to see how they use the language, how they form the poem, because sometimes the form of the poem says a lot. I'm spending more time playing with not only how the poem feels, but also how it looks on the page. For example, Here on my— in my poem, Gun with the Gunpowder, look at this stanza, for example.

Mahmoud Al-Qassas: Hmm.

Mosab Abu Toha: You see how it looks on the page? So here, so gun with the gunpowder, the wind of— so as if here on the page, even the wind was in the page, so the line was not in symmetry with other lines. So you need— you need— but when you use this free form, You need to be convinced that this works like this. It's not random. It's not arbitrary. You need to know why you wrote this line like this. It's not only like some painters who would splash a piece of paper with some colors without knowing why this color was over that color. No, you need to be aware of what you are doing, whether you are writing about yourself or about the people around you. And God bless you all. Thank you. And all the best, inshallah. We see you when I when I am back in Gaza.

Refaat Alareer: Inshallah, we can have you at university. Is there any short poem you want to read or share? Probably. Yeah. So special that reminds you of Walid or pun intended or the thought in there.

Mosab Abu Toha: Okay. One small poem. I have is— so there is one about us and them, us the Palestinians and them the Israelis. So I would say in the poem, I want to build my house on a swing. I don't want to walk on this earth. I tell them about houses being shelled, about bodies shred into tiny pieces, about a noisy sky.

Israa: Hmm.

Mosab Abu Toha: And shaking the ground. And they, they tell me about their concern over the little flowers they haven't watered for hours, over an ailing canary in the cage, over a TV show they will miss tonight. Their ears hurt when they hear sirens, but we are made deaf by explosions. Their muscles stiffen with fear.

Rihalya: I'm sorry.

Mosab Abu Toha: On their way to the shelter, while ours are pierced by boiling shrapnel.

Khaled: Thank you very much, uh, Musab.

Refaat Alareer: Uh, we're proud to have you. Thank you for accepting this invitation, for listening, uh, to, uh, IUG students and talking to them. Hopefully, uh, they can get the book, they can read the poems. This is my piece of advice: To keep reading the poetry you love, especially poetry written by people around you in your circles—Palestinians, non-English poets, especially modern poetry—and you and then you take it from there. Thank you everybody for joining us. I'll be uploading this to to YouTube and sending you the the link. يعطيكم العافية وشكرا لكم وإن شاء الله تكون هي هذه سبب فوز ال نعم نعم نعم لكن نعمل لعبتهم القادمة نعمل كمان لقاء زوم شكرا لجميع ولاش يزعل ولاش يزعل كريستيانو