Ep. 349 Testing Humanity with Mosab Abu Toha

Written By Megan Caballero

This week, we’re joined by Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian poet, activist, and author of the new collection Forest of Noise. In today’s episode, Mosab shares why he feels compelled to write during the ongoing genocide in Gaza and reflects on the urgent questions his work poses about Palestinian rights. He also discusses the meaning behind his book’s title and what he hopes readers will take away from this moving collection.

The Stacks Book Club pick for December is Tacky by Rax King. We will discuss the book on December 25th with Nora McInerny returning as our guest.

 
 

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Traci Thomas 0:08

Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host, Traci Thomas, and today I am honored to welcome to the show Mosab Abu Toha. Mosab is an internationally acclaimed poet and the founder of the Edward Said library, Gaza's first English language library, his most recent poetry collection came out earlier this year. It's called forest of noise, and it offers a lyrical and deeply personal exploration in life in Gaza today, most of and I talk about his experiences as he left Gaza a year ago. We talk about the ongoing genocide, and we talk about his work in documenting the stories of his people. Remember, our book club pick for December is tacky by rax King. Nora McInerney will be back on Wednesday, December 25 to discuss the book with me, so be sure to read along and tune in. Quick reminder, everything we talk about on each episode can be found in the link in the show notes, if you love the stacks and you want inside access to it, plus a handful of seasonal perks. Now is your time to join the stacks pack. Go to patreon.com/the, stacks for just $5 a month, you get access to all of our year long goings on, like our Discord, our virtual book club bonus episodes, but right now, when you join, you can vote in our annual literary awards. We call them the stackies. If you join before the end of January, you will get access to my amazing reading spreadsheet tracker that I am obsessed with. Also the mega challenge is coming out later in December. You get that too. So now is definitely the time to join the stacks pack. On top of that, you can actually gift access to the stacks pack. Now. Finally, Patreon got their act together. If you go to patreon.com/the stacks slash gift, you can give access to this community to anyone in your life. It's a win, win, win. You win because you get to give an amazing gift. They win because they get the gift. And I win, because I get to keep making this podcast. So go to patreon.com/the stacks. Join. Sign up your book bestie. Everybody wins. Another fun perk. If you join the sex pack, you get a shout out on the show. So thank you so much to Megan Bogdan, Chelsea Ray Abate, Sherry D Meg and Maggie bowling. Thank you all so much. And for those of you who are less interested in joining the community, but maybe want some of those perks, maybe don't want all of that stuff, you can go to my newsletter, find out what I'm up to, get some hot takes from me on books and pop culture, like all of my thoughts on wicked go to Traci thomas.substack.com and subscribe to my newsletter, Unstacked. It'll go directly to your email inbox, and now it is time for my conversation with Mosab Abu Toha.

All right, everybody. I am so excited today I am joined by a poet, and it's not even Poetry Month, so that's how you know this collection is really, really good. I'm joined by Mo sab Abu Toha, whose new collection, forest of noise is it's a stunner. Most of Welcome to

Mosab Abu Toha 3:10

the stacks. Thank you, Traci. I'm happy to be with you. I'm

Traci Thomas 3:13

so happy to talk with you. Okay, let's start where we always start in about 30 seconds or so. Can you just generally give folks a sense of what's in this book.

Mosab Abu Toha 3:22

Yeah, in these books are poems that were written before the start of the genocide and after the start of the genocide. Poems that talk about people who did not survive, people who did survive while I was writing about them, but who are no longer with us, poems that keep happening, poems about air strikes, the massacring of families, the massacring of people who were sheltering in schools, and also poetry about my grandparents, who were experts from their city in 1948 and who died in the refugee camp.

Traci Thomas 3:54

Yeah. I mean, as people are listening to explain that this Poe, this collection, really does have such a wide variety of poems. It's almost like a memoir in poems. I don't know, does that resonate with you at all?

Speaker 1 4:10

Well, I believe it could be called So, yeah, okay.

Traci Thomas 4:13

Because some poets, you know, they get really uptight. They're like, these are poems. This isn't a memoir, like, these are things I've created, but in my sense of reading it and the research that I did on you, I was like, Yeah, this feels like things that happened in his life.

Speaker 1 4:27

Yeah. Well, it these poems are about things that happened, but the thing is that they keep happening. So you can, you can call them, you can call some of them part of a memoir in verse about some of my life, aspect as a child in the refugee camp, or someone who survived different wars, different air strikes with his wife and kids, but also things that keep happening to his neighbors, his friends, his so every every day, every day, there is something that. And that I wish I included in the book, because, but this is, this is an ongoing genocide. Yeah.

Traci Thomas 5:06

I mean, I think for folks who aren't familiar with your story, you are Palestinian. Obviously, we covered that. But in after the events that started, and the bombings and everything from Israel in 2023 you and your family came. You guys left, you guys, you know, went, tried to go to Egypt. You were detained. It was a whole rigmarole. You come to the United States on like a fellowship to, you know, as a writer, in danger all of these things, but through all of this, most of you're writing poems. Like, what was the urge for you when? Because, like, let me be honest, when something bad happens in my life, I'm like, Okay, I need a break. Like, I just can't imagine that you're writing all these incredible poems as you're living all of this horrible stuff and your neighbors and your family and your countrymen like so what was compelling you to keep writing when you could have easily not written and no one would have said, Ugh, most of what a quitter, you know, like everyone would have understood. So I'm wondering what it is in you that made you keep going.

Speaker 1 6:18

Well, first of all, it is a human urge to share that trauma, the pain that I see, that I witness every day. I mean, as I said, Traci, it's not something I'm not trying to think about, something that happened and that I'm still traumatized as a result of, but it's something that keeps happening I'm watching even after I left Gaza in December last year. So today is December 3, and it's the day when I entered Egypt after I left Gaza on December 2. So it's, it's these poems were not written about things that that came to an end. I hope that was the case, but they continue to happen. And unfortunately, there is no sign that they will. They will. They will end soon. And while whether I was still in Gaza or while I am outside of Gaza, whether in Egypt or now in the United States, there is, there is, there is not a single day which passed without me witnessing the massacring of my people. So so I can tell you that three days ago, my my my aunt's husband was found killed in Gaza. He was 82 years old. He went missing on early, early November, and three days ago, his son, my cousin, posted that that he found his father who was killed. And then I talked to my cousin, I wanted to add to just, just talk to him about how he found his father, because it's even dangerous to look for people who go missing. And he told me that I hang I hung his his photos in the street, and I left my phone number. If anyone saw this guy, please call me. And then someone called him, and he told him, I think I saw someone who looks like your father, and he had a similar beard. So he said, Okay, I'm he said, You are risking your life if you go to that area. And my cousin went to that area, and you know what he found? He found his father's head. That was the only thing he found. And he put it in a plastic bag, and he went back, and he buried his father, which was a head. So every day there is something like this, yeah, and I can't, I can't just sit like this, and think about this only, but I have to share how I feel as I see and I witness these things even from 5000 miles away.

Traci Thomas 8:29

Yeah. Do you ever feel in doing that, witnessing and sharing these stories with us, like through your art? Do you ever feel like it's too much for you.

Speaker 1 8:42

Well, I mean, it could be too much for an artist to write about these things, but it's not. It's nothing compared to what real people are facing every day. Sure, it's even I mean, the feelings that I have are much more devastating than the feelings that a father in Gaza right now is struggling How is how a father or a mother are struggling to find bread for their kids, to find water, to find clothes for their children. Now it's winter. I'm now in upstate in New York, and I have everything I need. I have blankets, I have clothes, I have gloves. But I mean, in Gaza, it's very cold right now, and people left their houses. Not only did they leave their houses? But their houses were bombed. And we see videos every day coming from Jabalia camp. I posted today a photo of how the Jabalia refugee camp looked like before Israel invaded it three months ago, and how it looked like today. And the people who post these things are soldiers. They want to show us. You know, you see what we can do. And not only did these people, like my family, not only did they leave their house, but their houses were bombed, and even when they left the houses, they couldn't carry much, many things with them, so they are left to live in a tent, just like my two sisters with their children, or my wife's family, who are living in tents right now, and they spent a day, you know, no. For someone to lend them a mattress or a blanket. So I can't compare the kind of things that I'm doing. I'm doing my part as an artist to witness and invite other people to witness the life that not only I lived, but my people are still living, and God knows, until when. Okay,

Traci Thomas 10:19

this might be a kind of a hard question, because I don't understand how poets make poems. But how do you take all of this that has happened, that is happening, that you know is going on within your own family, things that you've witnessed, of you know, the your people, and how do you distill it down to these poems, like some of these poems are so short and so good and so resonant, and so when you're looking and taking in all of this right, like you said, it's happening right now. But also, like you said, your grandparents from 1948 and it goes way before that, and you found ways to write these poems that work and feel accessible to readers. So what are you what are you thinking about? How are you thinking about writing poems? And I think that's a hard question, maybe because I think if you're a poet, it just happens in some ways, but I also know that you're super smart, so I know you are thinking about it too.

Speaker 1 11:25

Okay, people maybe describe me as a smart person, but you call me a super smart, super

Traci Thomas 11:30

smart. Yes, get that super

Speaker 1 11:35

well. The thing Traci, is that when you started talking to me about this, you mentioned that, you know, Israel started bombing people in October, 2023 but the fact is that we have been bombed for years and years. I myself remember exactly what happened in two in January, 2009 when I was wounded in an airstrike. I was 16 years old, I got two pieces of in my body, and they remained in my body for eight months. And even do these two pieces of shrapnel that the doctors extracted from my body, I kept them in my house until it was bombed, until our house was bombed in October last year, so and then in 2012 and 2014 for 51 days killed, killed three of my friends, you know, along with about 101,400 people, etc. So this is, this is a continuous nightmare for us. Yeah, it was a traumatizing experience. Our house was partially damaged. My alma mater was bombed just about the time when I was going to graduate. And then there was the May 2021, attacks. And that was the first time in my life that I went through an Israeli war as a father. So the accumulation of these experiences, you know, they they the poem came to me. I didn't go to the poem. I did not sit and said, Okay, I want to write a poem about this. No, I just had, I just had this amount of grief, this amount of pain, this amount of trauma that I found myself trying to understand what's happening with me as a human being. Sometimes I write something because I found out that I misunderstood something. I misunderstood the photo that I saw or a video of a child. I thought so. For example, one time I was sitting and watching with my wife a video, and I saw, I saw a small boy, maybe eight years old, and his shoulder was was severed, and one armrest was was was cut, very, very, horrifically. And I thought, you look Maram. My wife's name is Maram. So I said, Look, Maram, the boy is brave. I mean, He's not crying, even though he doesn't have any family member with him. And I thought, and then later, I found that the boy was was dead. So I was, I was deceived, you know, and I tried to so I found out that I did not really understand what was happening. So I was shocked to realize that this was not the case. So I wrote a poem, a poem about that that the moment of realization there is another one, the photo, the video, of a young man carrying the dead body of a girl. And I wrote about this in my in my book, first of noise that a young boy was carrying the dead body of a young, a younger girl, and he was running in the in the hospital. But I mean, why would someone run with the body of a dead girl? What is the point here? And then I thought that because people started to run after him, I thought that these people, because these are living people, they were giving some kind of life to this girl, because these living people could, yeah, you know, so you, are you? Are you are alive for a moment when living people run after you, yeah. So I, so, I was trying to understand these things. They are, these are very traumatizing experiences. And I was trying, you know, to we. Write about these to try and understand that trauma that I have to even to also share some of the things that people don't have access to. Not only did Israel, as I said this a million times, not only did Israel cut off electricity, water, fuel, medicine, not only did they block the entry of international journals, but they also cut off the internet and also phone signal, so people outside don't have access, not only to to news, because there are just lots, lots of pieces of news that we don't we cannot even report on, but also people haven't been able to experience these things firsthand and answer because, you know, Gaza has been under war. Palestine has been under occupation for 76 years. People don't have any knowledge of what it means to live under military occupation, what it means to be killed with your wife and kids, what it means to be even to remain under the rubble. This happened for to at least the three of my friends to have their bodies under the rubble for about a year. So people don't, don't can't imagine, you know, can't imagine. It's impossible for anyone who hasn't been in Gaza to imagine what, how it feels to be under the rubble for about a year. Yeah, so through poetry, I hope to to bring people to experience some of why, what I experience, what my people are still experiencing.

Traci Thomas 16:30

How are you how were you thinking about audience for this book? How are you thinking about who your readers were, and what were you trying to do to them. And I guess a sort of additional question is, does do you think about the audience for the entire book, or do you think about audience per poem?

Speaker 1 16:51

Well, I mean, my audiences are anyone who want to have a real lens, you know, a real view of what's happening, not not of what's happening, but what what has been happening in Palestine, what has been happening in Gaza for the past four now, 15, I would be, I would say, 15 months. And also, the book intends to make people feel before they start to try and understand what's happening. Because some people would say, you know, you know, it's complex. It's complicated. I don't know. I don't understand. Well, you know what? It's not important that you understand what is happening or why it is happening. At least have some kind of feeling, a human feeling, just to try and understand how I feel, how I have been feeling, how a mother or a father is feeling when they see their children, you know, waiting for a crumb of bread or maybe a maybe one millimeter of water to drink. So this is this, book is intended to anyone who wants to try and let their humanity work, to test their humanity. Just read the book and see the kind of life that we have been leading, the kind of experiences that we are re experiencing on a daily basis. Yeah, and then after you feel and you see that this is, this is this is horrible, this is terroristic, even then you try to understand why it's happening, how long it has been going on for, yeah.

Traci Thomas 18:30

So, so there's part of you that hopes that this is maybe, like some people's entry point into sort of getting a sense of, what if, what it is like to live in Gaza or Palestine now in the last 15 months, in the last 76 years? Yeah,

Speaker 1 18:46

well, I mean, I think this is the true of any artist, any writer, you know. I mean, part of me writes the poems because it is a personal experience, which is also a collective experience. I write, I document, because I want everyone, not only who are people who are living right now in this decade or next decade, but also for history. You know, when we read words by Jewish writers about what happened during the Holocaust, we learn and we are shocked by what the Nazis have been doing. And we read this after about 80 years after it happened, you know. And we are shocked, but now we are. We are reading something that is happening right now, which is more shocking to me, which is more shocking because we are reporting on it on the spot. We are people are filming what's happening, you know, journalists who are just opening their cameras and run in the street to show the world what's what's happening whenever an is an American president say that Israel has the right to defend itself? Give me one time. This is a question to anyone. Give me one time when any official from this this country, then I did, or even from Europe, give me one time when they said that the Palestinian people have have the right to something? Yeah. Yeah, one time, one example, when they said, the Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves. I want to to hear from anyone an answer to this question, do the Palestinian people now, who are living in the Gaza Strip, whose houses are being destroyed, or whose parents or his whose children are being mastered, do they have any kind of right to defend themselves against the Israeli soldiers who have been attacking Gaza for 15 months, and the Palestinians the West Bank, whose whose land, whose houses are being bombed every day and stolen. Do they have any right even to resist, to fight, to to push back against the Israeli forces or the settlers? You know, this is, this, is, this is a basic question. I mean, do we have, do we have any right, even to defend ourselves when we are attacked? You know, if I mean defending your yourself is a human right. I mean, if a dog attacks me, I would defend myself. If a stone attacks me, I would, I would fight the stone. If that tree jumps, you know, onto my bed to kill me, I would, I would resist, yeah, if my brother, if my brother, attacks me, I would resist. Yeah, you know, so why did, why do the Palestinians have no right to defend themselves, especially now, when they are doing we are being genocided on a daily basis, yeah? Just, just, just forget about the Nakba of 1948 just forget about the occupation. Let's talk about these months, these 14 months, 15 months, we have no any we have we don't have any single right even to do anything, you know, and we don't have any kind of support, any protection from the international community, who never stopped fueling this genocide by sending more and more weapons, and we see what these what these bombs, what these weapons are doing to children. We hated the children burned to people in tents to which they had to evacuate after they left their houses. And we saw the video of Shabani Talu, you know. So what is one thing that the Palestinian people failed to do, to tell the to show the whole world that this has been going on right for decades. This is not anything that's happening in Gaza, but now it's being documented more and more. Yeah, see the difference between now and before?

Traci Thomas 22:11

Gosh, I have so many follow up questions to what you just said. Okay. First, yes, you're correct. Second, because of the work that you're doing to sort of document what's going on in in about as real time as you can with a book, but you do it in your social media. You do it you know, you're doing it in real time also. But when I think about like this book, you know, it just can't come out tomorrow. That's just not how books work. They're a little slow on the uptake. But when you're thinking about sort of being the person who documents these moments in history for people outside of the experience, what sort of responsibility do you feel to make sure that you that you're getting it right? Is that something that you're even thinking about, or are you just thinking, this is what I'm seeing, this is what I'm gonna show or do you try to, sort of like, put context on it for your for your audience. Are you thinking at all about, sort of making sure that what you're putting out into the world is as resonant as possible? I guess? Well,

Speaker 1 23:13

I mean, the thing that I share on my social media, that I that I talk about when I'm talking to media, with a radio or TV I'm I'm presenting some of the examples of what has been happening in the past few days. So I, I I show what I saw. I translate in words what I saw in a video or in a picture. I give the context that that what's happening right now in Gaza is not a genocide against Palestinian people, but it is a genocide against refugees. 70% of the population in Gaza are refugees whose right to return to their houses is guaranteed by international law, by the United Nations. You know, there is resolution 194 that the Palestinian people, who will expect of their houses in 1948 have the right to return to their houses that they were expelled from. This is a right that my grandparents, who died in the refugee camp, had the right to do, and they couldn't do it. My father should do it. Me. I should do it. My son should do it. So Israel is genociding not only Palestinian people, not only human beings, but also worse than that, they are killing refugees, whose whose lives, whose right to return should be implemented by the world community. So I'm just, you know, sharing these things. I'm when I list the names of people who were killed in an earth I showed that this is not again. This is not a massacre against individuals. This is a massacre against a whole family in an earth November last year, my friend Ismail. Abu haben was killed in Nusrat in southern Gaza. He was living in northern Gaza. He had to evacuate, based on the Israeli orders, evacuation orders, he left for a nusayrat camp in southern Gaza. Sir November last year, he was killed with his father, with his mother, with his two children. His wife survived. He was also killed with his three children, three sisters. Two of them only survived, but another three sisters will kill now, the body of Ismail, his father and his sister, I'm 15 years old, are still buried under the rubble since last November. And I wrote a poem about that in my book, which is called right or left, about the girl who whose body remained under the rubble for for days and days, and then when we remove the rubble, we only find one small bone. It is a bone from her arm. But which? Which arm, the right or the left arm? We don't know. It doesn't matter, because we don't have any fingers even to see, you know, so I'm I'm not only writing about what happened, but also what happened after what happened, or even sometimes what was happening before the air strike. I showed the insides of the family houses before the houses were bombed on tops of the people who were living inside and yeah, the responses that I expected from people is to put themselves in the places of these Palestinian families. What if I was born in New York City or in Chicago, and you or someone else who was living in Chicago or New York City were born in Gaza, and we the people, which is the virtual me is looking and watching the videos of what's happening to you and your students and your families. What do you expect? What do you want from me to do if I were in your place and you were in my place, what do you expect me to do? So this is a question that everyone should be thinking about, right, right?

Traci Thomas 26:45

You're a poet. You're a writer. You care about words. I know this to be true. And as you were talking about, you know the right? Who has the right to do what? What rights do Palestinians have? I was thinking a little bit about sort of like rhetoric and political rhetoric, and the way that words are so, I mean, so powerful they can shape how we understand a people, a conflict, a place. I mean just the way that the word genocide has become so contentious when that's clearly what's happening is, you know, it's enough to make you think that you're going crazy, right? Like when all of a sudden a word that means something doesn't mean anything anymore, because of the way that words and rhetoric have shifted. So I'm wondering if you are thinking about that, as well as when you're writing your poems and you're going on media and you're talking about these things, how are you thinking about using words to sort of combat some of the rhetoric that is trying to erase Palestinians, or erase the rights of Palestinians, or the understanding of what's happening?

Speaker 1 28:02

You know, when I, when I write poetry, I don't use explicit words, for example, you know, or big terms like genocide or Holocaust or, right? Or, you know, a massacre or a school assist, I whatever the word is, plumbing, schools and universities, yeah. So I don't, I don't. I don't use terms, you know. I just show the picture to the people, and they should, they should decide what kind of war crime this is, you know. So I don't, I don't care about the words even more than you could. You can call it 100 times genocide. But the question is, this is a, this is a you a human question. Do we really have to wait until it is a complete genocide? According to your understanding of the word genocide, you have to wait until it is a complete genocide in order to step in and say, Oh, this is now a genocide after half of the population, or a quarter of the population in Gaza are killed, oh, it is a genocide. Okay? And then what do you do? Right? So it's, I liken this to a fire that is raging in your house, and then your neighbor comes and say, Oh, this is not a big fire. You know, you don't have to call the fire truck. It's not yet a big fire, okay, just, let's wait until it is a big fire, and then, oh, call the fire trucks. And then on the way, the fire trucks are blocked by maybe traffic or something, and then the whole house is down. This is what's happening. I mean, some people say, Oh, it's not a genocide, like the old man who was sitting opposite me on the train when I was in Paris two weeks ago. And when I told him that I'm from Gaza, he asked me, Where do you come from? And I told him, I'm from Gaza. I told him, I left Gaza two months after the start of the genocide. Oh, it's not a genocide. So I told him, Okay, give me one word. This is a question to everyone. Give me one word that describes what Israel is doing in Gaza right now. Give me one word, and I will tell you what's happening in Gaza. A destruction of about 70% of the infrastructure in Gaza, the killing of about according to Landsat journal, medical journal in the UK, of about 200,000 people, whether it's by airstrikes, by bullets, by starvation, but also by the lack of medicine, lack of medical care in Gaza, my my grandfather, the last grandfather I had, passed away in April this year, because there was no doctor. He was 71 years old. He was the only the last grandfather I had. And there was no doctor. There was no phone signal. There is what? There was no there were no ambulances in the refugee camp, and he just passed away. And who? How did he pass away? Because Israel is blocking the entry of anything, right? So the death, the death and killing of about 200,000 people is this not enough to call it a genocide, the destruction of 70% of Gaza, the killing of about 45,000 people, with through air strikes and tank shilling. This is not a genocide, the blocking of all international Germans from entering into Gaza. What? What is Israel hiding? Right? You know, and we talk about starvation. Why? Why on earth does Israel even have the capacity or even power to block and decide how many trucks enter Why did they say Hamas is steal it? I mean, let's say Hamas is steals the food truck. Why on earth do do you manage or control how many food trucks enter into Gaza? That's right, this is this is siege, this is genocide. Yes, and even Israel, even even Israel, has the right to decide how many food trucks enter into Gaza, how many what kind of chocolate enter into Gaza? What kind of fruit, what kind of vegetable, what kind of meat? On the other hand, no one is checking what kind of things are entering into Israel. What kind of bombs are entering into Israel? Yeah, yeah. This is a human question. I'm just, let's say I'm not Palestinian. I'm just looking at what's happening. Why does Israel control what enters into Gaza? How many and no one is on the other side? This controls or even police, what kind of weapons that are entering into Gaza, and you know what is entering into Gaza, but no one is there. Okay, this is enough today for you. Let's wait until tomorrow or until next week. So this is a human question, why is this happening like this? Yeah, but because it is a genocide everything the perpetrator, the occupier, can do. It is a genocide. They can do anything,

Traci Thomas 32:32

right? Okay, we're going to take a quick break, and then we're going to come back. All right, we're back. I want to shift a little bit and talk a little bit about your process as a writer. A question that I ask all the writers who come on this show is, how do you write? How many hours a day, how often do you have snacks and beverages? Do you have rituals around your writing? What are you writing on paper, computer, your phone, can you? Can you sort of set the scene for how you write? Yeah, well,

Speaker 1 33:09

I don't, I don't write on a regular basis. I think the last time I wrote a poem, it was maybe two weeks ago and before this. These before two weeks ago. Maybe the last time I wrote a poem about before that. It was a month before that. So I'm not writing on a regular basis, but I sometimes take notes, you know, something that sparks in my mind, an image that is really shocking. So, for example, there is something that I'm working on. I don't usually decide, okay, now I'm going to write to work on that image that that came into my mind I want, sometimes I just don't try it for a week or two weeks or three weeks. So there is, there is this image of someone who was killed in an airstrike, and there was nothing left in his body. So he was in his flat, and there was the airstrike. His hand flew into his neighbor's house. His head was crushed under the ceiling and his feet, because it happened, by the way, what in October last year, my brother took a photo, and unfortunately, we have the photo of a foot of of a neighbor of ours, which he flew from about 200 meters away. We found it on on the door to our house. So I have, I because that that is a shocking image. I still have it on my phone, and I asked my question, you know this, this is a point that I'm working on that this, this person who was killed in that Israel says that my my foot landed on our neighbors doorsteps. My head was crushed under the ceiling. My fingers maybe hit the walls of our adjacent school, but where is me? I did not fall. So that's a that's a poem that in the making. I didn't even start writing it, but I had this image. Year, yeah, but I should write about it. I don't usually sit and Okay, today morning I will. I don't usually do this. Maybe this can work for essays. Could work for short stories or fiction, but for poems, sometimes the poem stays in your mind. It haunts you until you face it. So this is, this is, this is my writing process. And I usually write something. I take notes. I love to work on my laptop. I don't usually use pen and paper unless, you know, unless I was, I mean, except when I was in Gaza, you know, we didn't have electricity to charge the phones or the laptops. So I was taking notes. I still have notes, you know, that I didn't work on even after October 7, until I was abducted on November 19, last year, I was keeping a journal, and when I was abducted at the checkpoint, I the notebook was in my handbag. And when I was abducted, the Israeli soldiers ordered me to drop the bags so my notebook was in the bag that I dropped at the checkpoint. Three days later, when I was released, they dropped me at the same checkpoint, and I found my handbag still

Traci Thomas 36:08

was the notebook still in it? Yes, okay, yeah, but

Speaker 1 36:12

it was a little wet because of the weather, yeah. So I still have that notebook, wow. And I didn't even go back and read what I what I wrote until today? Oh, wow. Yeah, incredible. The last entry was November 18, one day before I was abducted.

Traci Thomas 36:27

Have you kept a new journal since then? No,

Speaker 1 36:31

no, because, because I didn't have time even to write my own stuff, unless and except when I was writing pieces for the New York Times or The New Yorker, but other than that, I wasn't. I don't keep a journal. I don't take a lot of notes every day because I'm non stop translating and breaking news from Gaza, posting videos and pictures, posting please, from friends you know, communicating with my my my father and my siblings in the Gaza Strip, my sisters and their children, my friends, my students. So I even don't have time, you know, to sit and Okay, today I'm going to write something. I don't have that kind of luxury. Yeah,

Traci Thomas 37:10

you skipped over this part, and I got to get everybody on record on this. Do you have any snacks and beverages that you write with? And if not, can you just share some snacks and beverages that you love? I can't live without tea. What kind of tea? It's a black tea. My guy it

Speaker 1 37:29

would. I mean, we have our own tea. It's snowing outside in Syracuse. Oh, my goodness, everything is white. I'm so I'm I'm so thankful that it does not snow in Gaza. Realize that yeah, lies.

Traci Thomas 37:43

I live in Los Angeles, so I cannot relate to snowing.

Speaker 1 37:48

Well, I believe I was in I was in San Francisco a few days ago, and the weather there is similar to the weather in Gaza. So okay, in winter, it could be too cold, but it doesn't snow. I've never seen snow in Gaza all my life. So my most beloved beverage is tea, black tea, I would say it's very close to the English breakfast tea.

Traci Thomas 38:12

English breakfast. That's when I drink and

Speaker 1 38:14

I add and I add with this age, and this is very common in Gaza, dried sage leaves. Oh,

Traci Thomas 38:21

dried sage leaves. Okay, wait, I have sage in my refrigerator that I did not use at Thanksgiving time that I'm gonna dry and try. I'm gonna

Speaker 1 38:31

try it. We'll see you missed. You missed Allah, okay, I'm gonna try

Traci Thomas 38:35

it and see. Okay. Wait, will you talk to us a little bit about the title and the cover of the book. Were you involved at all in the cover process? How did you the title? Is a line from, from one of the poems. How do you pick it

Speaker 1 38:49

is it is even the title of the title? In the title, yeah, forest of noise. You know about the holes on the ground, in the street, every, every, every, every hole in the ground, in the asphalt, in the tarmac, is a forest of noise, because in Gaza, there is not a single moment when there was no drones buzzing, sound roar, one of 16 you Know, the helicopters sound in the sky, the gun boats, you know, screams of children, lovely words from a father to a mother, the hunks of cars. So it's, it's very noisy in Gaza, especially now. So that's, that's forest of noise. And I think every poem is a forest of noise. You know, the the side, the ambulance sirens, the air strike, the artillery shilling. I have on my phone because I'm now I'm recording so I have on my phone. I have recordings of sound. I have, I have recordings of that run as long as seven hours. I have five minutes long recording. I'm not sure if I have it on my iPad, of of artillery shilling on October, on november 17, which was my 31st birthday. You

Speaker 1 40:28

I sometimes when I go and read, I present my book, I play some part of this voice memo, and I would tell people to pay attention to three different kinds of sound in this segment. The first one is the sound of the artillery shell when it's fired, and then the shells wearing sound in the sky over us, and then the sound of the explosion itself. It.

Speaker 1 41:07

So it is. It is a forest of noise, not only in on the ground, but also in the sky over us. It is a forest of noise. Yeah. So and we as for the artwork, I was not involved in the creation of this artwork. But I really loved it because it reflects the opening. For me, it reflects the opening of the book, which says that every every child in Gaza is me, every mother and father is me. Every house is my heart, every tree is my leg, every plant is my arm, every flower is my eye. Every hole in the air is my wound. So and and when I published, when it was the publication day of the book, I posted that this hand, which looks like a tree brand, yeah, and these are some leaves. I invited people to think that this is a handshake that they should place their the palm of their hand over my book to say hi to me before we meet. Maybe

Traci Thomas 42:12

I love that. Okay, you are writing to do so much right, like you have so much that you are trying to do with your work, because there is so much to show the world and to document and to honor for other people, both living and people who have passed, who are killed. And so I'm wondering, how do you say, Okay, I'm done with this book. It's ready. Because, like you said, everything is ongoing. This, the book might be done, but these poems are speaking to things that maybe happened, but are also happening. So how do you say here? John Freeman, my dear editor, take this. I'm done with it. Like, what is that like for you,

Speaker 1 43:02

I think, I think the poems that are in that are in the book, represent so many diverse experiences of what it means to be someone from Gaza. You know, poems from times when a father left his house to buy some bread for his kids, but news of his death made at home. This is a poem, by the way, so news of his death made at home, but not the bread. No bread. Death sits to eat. Whoever remains in the WHO death sets to eat, Whoever remains of the kids. No need for a table, no need for bread. There is a this is part of under the rubble long poem. There is a poem about the family gathering in Ramadan in 2024 in the in the kitchen, the people were missing in the house. The kitchen was missing in the house, the house was missing, and the rubble of the house is waiting for a sunset or sunrise. Sorry, so and there is a poem about my abduction. There is a poem about me watching a helicopter firing a rocket, you know, at a building that was just a few 100 meters away from me when I was eight years old, you know. So these are, there are poems about before October 7, before even, I mean, that are 20 years old when I was even more when I was eight years old, that was about, I would say, 24 years old. Sorry, 24 years ago. So there are poems from different different times, from different perspectives, the perspective of my father, sorry, my grandfather and my grandmother when my father was a young boy in the refugee camp. So there was some kind of reminiscence when my grandfather was remembering the time when he was a groom, when he got married to my grandmother. I didn't see them. Of course, I never met my grandfather, by the way, he died even before my father got married. So I write about. These members of my family, my my students, my neighbors. So I think, I think the book has so many, so many things that represent the Palestinian experience, especially during the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip. Yeah,

Traci Thomas 45:16

okay, I want to talk quickly. We have a little bit of time about the library. It was destroyed. As you mentioned, there's two of them, the Edward Said library, English language. I mean, like, I don't even know if I have a good question about it. I just, I feel like it's, I would like to have you have the opportunity to speak about what, what you built, and also what that loss looks like, especially, again, as a person who makes books and loves books and loves, from what I can tell of you, a person who is committed to documentation, and in some ways is sort of like a cultural historian for for your people and for for Gaza. So I'm just curious, sort of what that what that has been. Yeah,

Speaker 1 46:00

thank you for this question. And I think my contribution to the English, to the book community, is a response on my part to the destruction of my library, and also to the destruction of the Edward Said, public libraries, two branches, one in North Gaza, one in Gaza City, and the loss that I had felt was not only the the material loss of the books and the shelves and the space itself, but it's also of the time that I could have spent there with my students, with my friends, with my community, and it's also the loss of lives of so many people who used to come to the libraries, and I'm sure that there are So many people that I don't know about who were killed or who were injured, and it's also about the loss of a dear librarian who was killed, mostly, who was killed with her parents and her siblings last December. So it is a huge loss for me when I when I start to talk about the libraries, it is a spiritual loss. It is an emotional loss. It is a, yeah, a loss of so many people, you know, librarians, books, children who used to come to the libraries. And one reason why I created the libraries was then the immense need that we should have a space where people, especially then, could gather in a space that is that is encircled by books. It is a way to break the siege, which Israel has been imposing since two since 2007 people have never been allowed, mainly, usually to leave Gaza, you know, to travel to study, to just, you know, to do some tourism. And on the on the other hand, people from outside that have never been allowed to visit Gaza unless they were, you know, parts of international delegations, or maybe doctors or so. I was bringing the outside world to the people in my in my cities and and it is heartbreaking that that we have been reading books by American authors, many of whom have been silent about what's happening. Yeah. And also Western authors, not only American authors, yeah,

Traci Thomas 48:15

okay, I have three more questions, one of them, I hope you answer, but I guess you don't have to. Which is, do you have a favorite poem in the collection?

Speaker 1 48:28

I mean, it could be the long poem under the rubble, because it has so many different parts that speak to so many experiences. But if I mean it is, it is a series of poems under one title, but a very, very favorite poem would be right or left.

Traci Thomas 48:44

Okay, I like the one. Can I tell you my favorite? Please? My favorite. I liked a lot of them. I actually had to go back and I took notes on which ones I liked, and then I went back and reread and I decided that I had a favorite, but it was down to kind of a few. But no art I loved. No art. Yeah,

Speaker 1 49:01

that's another favorite. Okay, good, okay, after Elizabeth, yeah, I love it. But I mean, because that poem, you know, that poem, by the way, no art, was written before October 7. About that, because in the poem, I said, I said I lost the three friends to war, a city to darkness and a language to feel that was before October 7. Because after October 7, I lost at least 300 friends, whether they are neighbors, whether they are school friends, whether they are people from the neighborhood. So but that poem right or left, why I chose it? It's because about, you know, sister of a friend of mine, whose body remain undeveloped until today.

Traci Thomas 49:39

Okay, you mentioned earlier that you know you were thinking about this book as maybe an entry point for people, so for people who read forest of noise and they love it, what other books would you recommend to them that are in conversation with your work?

Speaker 1 49:55

I don't want to be selfish, but my first book, my first. Book things you may find it in my ear is a necessary read when it comes to reading forest of noise, because many of the poems in the first book also happened again and again during the ongoing genocide. For example, shrapnel looking for laughter. It's what's it is my, I would say my favorite poem in that book. It is about the family who was killed under the rebel of their house, the whole family, the father, the mother and the four children, the young, the oldest was 10 years old, and they were living just two kilometers away from us. And I was a father, and I was seeing these this thing as if it's as if it's happening, if it was happening to me. So other books would be mahamud de riches, memory for for good fullness, which is a prose book about the siege on Beirut in 1982 books by by atta Babu, save the drone eats with me. There is from 2014 Israel 2014 Israeli attacks men in the sun, by Hassan kanafani, so they are not. I mean this, men in the sun or returning to Haifa are not necessarily in direct conversation with the book, but they are very important to understanding the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 and even after you know books by other Palestinian American writers like Naomi shihabnai, like Lena halato FAU, won the National Book Award this month. Congratulations. Hallah aliyan, Lisa saw her. Maja Suzanne, Abu Hawa to you know, who wrote mornings in Jenin about the massacre in the Jenin refugee camp. And there are so many other writers. Of course, the work of Edward said is a must read. Rashid Khalidi, the 100 year war on Palestine, which a few days ago, a photo of Biden. I saw that book. What a joke. Well, I wish, I wish, I wish he could just grab a copy of my book, yes, and read a poem. Well, Obama's

Traci Thomas 51:55

list hasn't come out yet, so maybe you'll be on it. That would be very Obama. You know, because he does one book, he always does his list. He does two. It's probably coming next week. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to just manifest. I

Speaker 1 52:08

didn't, I didn't care. I don't care. I mean, whether he or Biden, but I mean, at least they should, they should read some of the poems. This is to me. Is not about me. This book is not about me, by the way. No, it is about, it is about my family, my people, my students. You know, it is about, it is about a genocide that is, that is ongoing, yeah, you know, just, I mean, I said that more than once. Just imagine you are reading Anne Frank's diary while she was hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam. Just imagine you're reading something like this, right,

Traci Thomas 52:41

right? You know, yeah, okay. My last question, if you could have one person dead or alive read this book, who would you want it to be

Mosab Abu Toha 52:52

my grandfather?

Traci Thomas 52:54

Yeah, yeah. I

Speaker 1 52:56

never met my grandfather. As I said, He died at the age of 59 Yeah, he was very young. I mean, he died in the refugee camp. And the reason why he died, as my father told me, he contracted diabetes after the Israeli soldiers one day in the late 1970s broke into his house, and they've terrified him. Terrorized him, not terrified he. Terrorized him and his children and wife while they were sleeping. It was 3am my father told me when that happened, and after that day, my grandfather's health started to deteriorate until he was tied to a wheelchair, and he died in 1984 three years before my father got married. So I dedicate this book to my I wish my grandfather could read this book, because I wrote something about him in the book. And also in my first book, I wrote my grandfather was a terrorist, and also my grandfather and home about his push to my grandfather used to count the days for return with his fingers. Then he started to use the stones, the trees, the plants. Then absence turned out to be too long, you know. Then he started using people to count, you know, yeah. And, you know, he died 636, years after the Nakba, and for us now, it's over 70 years. So I wish my grandfather could read some of my poems, because I write in his honor too.

Traci Thomas 54:19

Most of thank you so much for being here. Thank you for talking with us about the book. It is so fantastic people listening. You can get this book wherever you get your books. It is out in the world now. It would make a fantastic holiday present for people in your lives. It will make a fantastic book for your own shelves. It would make a fantastic book to make sure that your libraries have in stock, make sure that you request them at your local libraries. Most up. Thank you so much for being here.

Mosab Abu Toha 54:50

Thank you, Traci. I really love talking to you

Traci Thomas 54:53

Same, and everyone else, we will see you in The Stacks.

All right, y'all that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening, and thank you again to Mosab for joining the show. I'd also like to thank Michiko Clark for helping to make this conversation possible. Don't forget the stacks book club pick for December is tacky by rax King, and we will be discussing the book on Wednesday, December 25 Yes, Christmas, yes. We're that kind of tacky with Nora McInerney. If you love the show and you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks and join the stacks pack and check out my substack at tracithomas.substack.com. make sure you're subscribed to the stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts, and if you're listening through Apple podcasts or Spotify, be sure to leave us a rating and a review for more from the stacks. Follow us on social media@thestackspod on Instagram, threads and Tiktok, and @thestackspod_ on Twitter, and you can check out our website at thestackspodcast.com. This episode of the stacks was edited by Christian Dueñas, with production assistance from Megan Caballero. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight, and our theme music is from Tagirijus. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

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