Revolution Books Book Club: Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

Revolution Books Book Club: Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza by Mosab Abu Toha.

This poetry book is the Winner of the American Book Award, the Palestine Book Award and Arrowsmith Press’s 2023 Derek Walcott Poetry Prize

From the publisher: "In this poetry debut Mosab Abu Toha writes about his life under siege in Gaza, first as a child, and then as a young father. A survivor of four brutal military attacks, he bears witness to a grinding cycle of destruction and assault, and yet, his poetry is inspired by a profound humanity."

These poems emerge directly from the experience of growing up and living in constant lockdown, and often under direct attack. Like Gaza itself, they are filled with rubble and the ever-present menace of surveillance drones policing a people unwelcome in their own land, and they are also suffused with the smell of tea, roses in bloom, and the view of the sea at sunset.

Revolution Books book club chose this book to discuss because:

This slim volume plants your feet in the shoes of the people in Gaza. The intensifying horror in Gaza must be confronted and met with bigger, more determined, mass protest. And most importantly, intensified struggle to STOP Israel’s genocide in Gaza must be merged with an understanding of, and determination to act on, the urgent need for revolution in the belly of the beast responsible for all this and so many more crimes against humanity.