The Islamic University in Gaza has seen 95% of its buildings damaged or destroyed, yet its students continue to write poetry as a form of resistance. Two new collections, Folding a River and Let's Throw Away War, bring Palestinian voices to the world.
Poetry as a Line of Defence
Nazmi al-Masri, professor of languages at the Islamic University of Gaza, states: "Poetry keeps hope alive. Even in the darkest moments, Palestinian poetry continues to imagine a future." He adds: "Poetry gives people a language to express collective grief. In Gaza, poetry documents what cameras cannot always reach and what numbers can never explain."
Since the war began, 72 faculty members and 543 students have been killed, while 2,860 students graduated. All classes are now online, relying on solar power for brief video meetings.
The Tradition of Palestinian Poetry
Alison Phipps, professor at Glasgow University and editor of Folding a River, notes: "Poetry is the mother tongue of Palestine." She has collaborated with the Islamic University for 17 years. The collections include works dedicated to Refaat Alareer, a Gazan poet killed in an airstrike in December 2023. His poem If I must die urges: "If I die / you must live / to tell my story."
Masri explains: "Alareer's poem travelled across the world because it expresses something very simple but very powerful: the fear of disappearing without being remembered."
Writing Under Fire
Phipps and Masri write in their introduction: "These are not poems written in quiet rooms. They are written under collapsing ceilings, typed on phones with failing batteries, memorised because paper may not survive." The poems notably lack bitterness, reflecting a refusal to mirror the violence they abhor. As Phipps says: "For my students from Gaza, being alive is resistance."
Excerpts from Let's Throw Away War
Holding on to life
As resistance,
To carry the stories
Of those who left us,
Whose spirits remain carved
Into the silence of this place.
— Aya Ashraf Elsourani, from Survivor's Guilt
They plunder your sleep, destroy your peace,
Their crimes scream loud, just cease!
They burn your world, then dance so free
Above your pain and destiny.
But still my voice breaks the night.
I fight, I fall, I rise, I write.
— Hanan Jalal al-Kafarna, from Defiant Darkness
We do not ask for support.
We ask for dignity.
We ask for freedom.
We ask for safety.
We ask for the right to learn,
to teach,
to speak in our own names,
to write ourselves into existence.
— Manar al-Houbi, from Give Me Time to Breathe
Between us, the sky will not collapse.
Even if the roofs of houses have already fallen,
we will build a horizon from scraps of cloud,
and teach the wind to carry our names forward.
We will not count the losses.
We will count the rivers that refuse to dry,
the stones that keep warmth after fire,
the children who draw suns on ruined walls.
— Shahd Alnaouq, from Be My Brother
These collections, published by Wild Goose Publications, serve as a testament to resilience and the enduring power of poetry in the face of devastation.
