Forest of Noise: Poems

“No need for radio: / We are the news” says Palestinian poet and librarian Abu Toha, author of the National Book Critics Circle finalist Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear and founder of the Edward Said Library, an English-language public library whose Gaza City branch was recently destroyed. More than any news reporting, this heartbreaking collection makes vividly real the suffering in Gaza and what it’s like to face huge, ongoing loss. Life is really the “slow death of survival,” notes Abu Toha, adding “We no longer look for Palestine. / Our time is spent dying. / Soon, Palestine will search for us.” Abu Toha can be plainspoken, then turn around with a stark, horrific image that drops like hot coals: “In Jabalia Camp, a mother collects her daughter’s / flesh in a piggy bank, / hoping to buy her a plot / on a river in a faraway land.” Yet what’s pervasive (and most disturbing) is not the constant thrum of death but the sense of loss—of family, place, memories, continuity, home, and village, with the loss of the past meaning the loss of the future.

CORRECTION NOTICE: We found an editorial error in the original review; this online version has been corrected.