HEAVEN LOOKS LIKE US

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**A love letter to Palestinian ancestors, their descendants, and their land, to all anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles, to a history that will never be forgotten, and to a future in which there thrives a free, free Palestine.

Poetry has always served as a mode of resistance in Palestinian culture. In defiance of dispossession and decades of military siege, of a nakba that never ended, of historical and cultural obfuscation, of unrelenting violence and thousands of martyred people, the "power to narrate," as Edward Said wrote, remains a necessary tool for self-determination. The poems collected here reclaim that power, bridging borders, languages, and generations to forge new conversations around resistance and liberation.

HEAVEN LOOKS LIKE US is a battle-cry against the annihilation of a people. As Palestinian history remains haunted by exile, violence, and grief, so, too, are the poems in this anthology. And yet, editors George Abraham and Noor Hindi present these realities alongside other themes that are also true: queer and feminist perspectives, eco-poetry, meditations on love and time, and lineages of protest. This anthology dares to imagine a future beyond a nation-state for Palestinian people everywhere. Contributors include Refaat Alareer, Mahmoud Darwish, Naomi Shihab Nye, Mohammed El-Kurd, A.D. Lauren-Abunassar, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Hala Alyan, Fady Joudah, and Heba Abu Nada, and many other voices, both established and ascending.

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Introduction

Heba Abu Nada, Not Just Passing

 

OUR BAGS ARE ALWAYS READY

Carolina Ebeid, Palestine the Metaphor

Hala Alyan, Ancestry

Dalia Taha, The Man and His Girlfriend Who Argued

All of Last Night and Now Stand at a Pharmacy in R

City to Buy Medication for Headaches

Olivia Eilas, Our Bags are Always Ready

Mourid Barghouti, A Small Eternity

Najwan Darwish, The Appearances of Taha Muhammad

Ali

Summer Farah, POEM FOR AKKA BEFORE &

AFTER SETTLERS TORCH PALESTINIAN HOMES,

MAY 2021

Zena Agha, Elegy for Return

Sarona Abuaker, “my dear, don’t be afraid, it’s nothing,

it will pass”

Mohammed El-Kurd, Laugh

Hind Shoufani, ID

REVOLUTION IS FEMININE

Rewa Zeinati, other wives and veils and villages

Hajer Mirwali, 3aib

Aiya Sakr, and in the beginning, she stepped out of the

grove

Summer Awad, Belqassim’s Wives

Mandy Shunnarah, if jesus was fat

Jessica Abuggattas, Litany for my Father

Rema Ghassan Shbaita, Of Being Laid Bare

Noor Hindi, This Rubble is Mine

Janine Mogannam, Dead Sea Existential

A.D. Lauren-Abunasser, Aphantasia

Annemarie Jacir, landscape

Olivia Elias, Light

Violence by Zaina Alsous

HOW I KILL SOLDIERS

Jehan Bseiso, Prayer

Dareen Tatour, Women’s Chant

Lisa Suhair Majaj, Do you see them?

Refaat Alareer, Over the Wall

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Variations on a Last Chance

Hasib Hourani, Untitled

Micaela Raen, Silence on Fire

Rimona Afana, nar

Laila Shikaki, 2 years in, 5 days out

Mahmoud Darwish, The Eternity of the Cactus

Naomi Shihab Nye, Separation Wall

Nadia Said, Do you think God ever puts on a hat and

fleece lined coat,

Samih Al-Qasim, End of a Talk with a Jailer

Sarona Abuaker, My Mother’s Third Imprisonment

Ahlam Bsharat, How I Kill Soldiers

Fadia Antabli, Letter to my Killer

Najwan Darwish, Who Remembers the Armenians

JD Harlock, There Will Be No Funeral

Refaat Alareer, If I Must Die

Omar ZahZah, a poem joins the resistance

A POEM HANGS IN BALANCE

Fargo, Craft Talk

Yasmeen El-Hasan, An Archive

Tarik Dobbs, For Inside ‘48

Rasha Abdulhadi, Finished with Peace

Samah Fadil, prongs into the nation

Ahmad Diab, UNRWA

Yousef Qasmiyeh, Anthropologists

Layla Goushey, Anthology of Ethnological Shifts

Lina AlSharif, A poem hangs in balance

Asmaa Azaizeh, Reflection

Jaye Nasir, Good Night

Sheikha Hlewa, Nakba

Dareen Tatour, In the Camp

Suheir Hammad, Jabaliya

Ghayath Almadhoun, Black Milk

IS THE WHOLE AIR THE PATH OF THE GAZELLE

Issam Zineh, The Last Poem I Write

Jaye Nasir, Pastoral

George Abraham, the ghosts of the dead sea are rising

Dina Abdulhadi, Genesis

Ashraf Fayadh, on the virtues of oil over blood

Jaye Nasir, Last Rites

Eman Ghanayem, Soils

Tariq Alarabi, Carob Tree

Deema Shehabi: Ghazal: The Sun

Yahya Ashour, 4 poems

Mustafa Abu Sneineh, Emperor

Fady Joudah, The Onion Poem

Naomi Shihab Nye, 19 Varieties of Gazelle

I LOVED YOU WITHOUT EVIDENCE

A.D. Lauren-Abunasser, Postimmigration Pastoral

Farah Baraqawi, Ants

Issam Zineh, Coefficients of Friction

Maya Abu-AlHayyat, Ordinary Grief

Mustafa Abu Sneineh, Nablus Street

Ashraf Fayadh, Prayers of Longing

Lenna Jawdat, Atmosphere

Deema Shehabi, Ghazal: I

Samer Budair, requiem for a memory of a mediterranean

moon

Suheir Hammad, Princes and Queens

Shereen Naser, To My Daughters

Nadia Said, When Mama Says Allah Yerda 3liky

Hanan Hindi, Mama’s closet

Tariq Luthun, I GO TO THE BACKYARD TO PICK

MINT LEAVES FOR MY MOTHER

Zeina Azzam, Palestine: Art in our Breath

Hala Akkawi, Letter to Palestine

Yusuf Saleh, Daughter of the Arabs

leena aboutaleb, Of a Coming World

BITTER ENGLISH

Fargo Tbakhi, Of

Sara Saleh, Punctuation as Organized Violence

Ahmad Almallah, Bitter English

Samer Budair, home // ال†وجود†ع†مد

Heba Hayek, Full Interview

Nathalie Handal, :3

Priscilla Wathington, Hungriest Organ

Aziza Okab, an ode to the city i live in that will never be

home

Nadeen Alalami, Ya Quds

Mosab Abu Toha, Palestine A to Z

Sara Abou Rashed, In Arabic, the Word for “War” Is

Similar to “Love”

Yahya Hassan, CHILDHOOD

Bassam Jamil, the voice

Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, Autobiography of Fear

WHAT I WANT IS NEVER CALLED NATION

Ghayath Almadhoun, WE

Ghassan Zaqtan, Biography in Charcoal

leena aboutaleb, art exhibition — West Bank girl on fire

Rimona Afafna, white

Maen Hammad, The Mundane

Jen Siraganian, Self-Portrait of Second Version

Kaleem Hawa, Learned Helplessness

Jess Abughattas, Dinner Party

Zaina Alsous, cinematography

Hala Alyan, Wife in Reverse

Rewa Zeinati, Rooms

Mohammed El-Kurd, Anti-Biography

Maya Abu-AlHayyat, Mahmoud

Mira Mattar, Affiliation

Mejdulene Shomali, Stone Heart

Carolina Ebeid, Punctum/Metaphor

BEIT FOR TIME

Mahmoud Darwish, Don’t Write History as Poetry

Emily Khilfeh, AL-EIZARIYA

Kaleem Hawa, Jericho II

Sarah Saleh, The museum of Falasteen

Nathalie Handal, Riflessi

Suja Sawafta, Pompeii

Angie Mazakis, Fulmination

Micaela Sahhar, The New Jerusalem

Fady Joudah, Palestine TX

Hajer Mirwali, Open Guide of Palestine

Rasha Abdulhadi, The Dead Palestinian Father

George Abraham, Unarcheology of Father

Yousef Qasmiyeh, The Camp is a Bait for Time

Sara Abou Rashed, No More Years of Nakba

Sharif Elmusa, Drawings

Ghassan Zaqtan, Everything as it Was

Islam Khatib, one day the hauntings will stop

PALESTINE IS A FUTURISM

Veera Sulaiman, Manifesto

Samih Al-Qasim, He Whispered before he Took his Last

Breaths

Ibrahim Nasrallah, Palestinian

Mohammed Khader, Between the rivers and the seas

Zaina Alsous, Cento of Women in the Sun

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Letter to June Jordan in September

Mosab Abu Toha, On Gaza Seashore

*Samer Abu Haw…