As we walked Emma in the rain earlier today, I felt a sudden urgency to post about Gaza. Zippy asked, “What will you say about Gaza?” My reply, “Maybe an excerpt from Refaat Alareer’s “If I Must Die.”

Just now, I opened the book to page 107 and what I read on that page feels very apt in these days of censorship and fascism, guidance for all of us, no matter where we reside on the planet.

An Introduction to Poetry.
Edited excerpt from a spoken lecture delivered to students in Advanced English Poetry at the Islamic University, Gaza
2021

We all know Fadwa Tuqan, the Palestinian poet. And please don’t introduce her a “Ibrahim Tuqan’s sister.” Let’s talk about Fadwa Tuqan as Fadwa Tuqan.

We always fall into this trap of saying, “she was arrested for just writing poetry!” We do this a lot, even us believers in literature. “Why would Israel arrest somebody or put someone under house arrest, she only wrote a poem?”

So, we contradict ourselves sometimes. We believe in the power of literature changing lives, as a means of resistance, a means of fighting back–and then at the end of the day, we say, “She just wrote a poem!” We shouldn’t be saying that.

Moshe Dayan, an Israeli general, said that, “the poems of Fadwa Tuqan were like facing twenty enemy fighters.” Wow. She didn’t throw stones, she didn’t shoot at the invading Israeli jeeps, she just wrote poetry. And I’m falling for that again–I said she just wrote poetry . . .

And the same thing happened to Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour. She wrote poetry, celebrating Palestinian struggle, encouraging Palestinians to resist, not to give up, to fight back. She was put under house arrest, she was sent to prison for years.

That excerpt of the published excerpt from “If I Must Die,” highlights two courageous Palestinian women resisting oppression and occupation through their poetry. In 2023, I shared Fadwa Tuqan’s “Hamza” and today I offer another of her poems, “Enough For Me.”

And let’s also honor poet Dareen Tatour, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who was sentenced by Israel (“the only democracy in the Middle East!”) to nearly three years of house arrest and five months in prison for a poem.

Detaining a Poem
One day,
they stopped me,
shackled me,
tied up my body, my soul,
my everything…

Then they said: search her,
we’ll find a terrorist within her!
They turned my heart inside out—
my eyes as well,
rummaged through even my feelings.
From my eyes they drew a pulse of inspiration;
from my heart, the ability to sketch out meanings.
Then they said: beware!
She’s hiding weapons deep in her pockets.
Search her!
Root out the explosives.
And so they searched me…

Finally, they said, accusing me:
We found nothing
in her pockets except letters.
We found nothing except for a poem.

Translated from the Arabic by Andrew Leber

June 19, 2022

Today I thank all who are resisting, whether that resistance is via literature, visual arts, music, photography, mutual aid, whistle brigade, immigrant court observer, caring for your neighbor’s children, putting food in a Little Free Pantry, or making a donation to crips for esims for gaza. Remember, every act of kindness is an act of resistance.

Free Palestine.