
Three poems, Yousef al-Qedra
My mother hid the
key in a loaf of bread. “Eat it,” she
said, “and if they ask you, say: I’m
full from captivity.”

“Writing Poetry in the Time of Genocide,” Mohammed Moussa
After almost two years of relentless attacks on our city, it feels like the poems we create could be our final messages. Some write on scraps of paper or in notebooks while being displaced, moving from one place to another, often forgetting what we wrote in our homes before fleeing. Our poetry can be lost, just like us, at any moment in Gaza.
I find writing helps when I'm overwhelmed by this half-life, this genocide; it's like the words are stuck in my throat, and I just have to get them out.