S5: E39 Poets of Palestinian Heritage, hosted by Julia Chiapella & Farnaz Fatemi

The Hive Poetry Collective

Farnaz Fatemi and Julia Chiapella read poems by Palestinian poets and those of Palestinian heritage to amplify and bear witness to the range of their perspectives and the richness of these voices. We found the reading of these aloud to each other to be profoundly moving. Please see the extensive show notes for links to the poets, their books, many more we couldn’t include on the show and other recent resources.

In this order--Fadwa Tuqan, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Zeina Azzam, Mahmoud Darwish, Mosab Abu Toha, Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, Noor Hindi, Naomi Shihab Nye were featured on the show.

We mentioned the following anthologies during this hour: We Call to the Eye & the Night: Love Poems by Writers of Arab Heritage (Zeina Hashem Beck and Hala Alyan, editors); & Modern Arabic Poetry (Salma Khadra Jayyusi, editor).

Since recording our episode a week ago, the Palestinian academic and poet ⁠Refaat Alareer⁠ was killed in Gaza; we want to bring attention to the ⁠story of this poem, his last⁠.

We additionally want to highlight the work of Deema K Shehabi, George Abraham, Nathalie Khankan, and Fady Joudah (also see Joudah’s recent “meditation”), among many, many others. For one additional resource about poets, see the Instagram account, The Palestinian Poetry Project, poetrypalestine.

The LA Review of Books recently published a small folio of writing from poets of Palestinian heritage.

We recommend Palestinian Poets on the Role of Literature in Fighting Genocide.

Vox Populi published a “ceasefire cento” solicited from poets globally. You can read it here.