Written under collapsing ceilings, typed on phones: the poetry bringing Palestine to the world

Poetry may not be the best response to aerial bombardment, but for many Palestinians it has become a line of defence amid the rubble and ongoing killings in Gaza. Even in the darkest moments, Palestinian poetry continues to imagine a future,” Nazmi al-Masri, professor of languages at the Islamic University of Gaza , says at an online poetry event held by his students. “Poetry gives people a language to express collective grief,” he says.

“In Gaza, poetry documents what cameras cannot always reach and what numbers can never explain. When destruction erases physical spaces, poetry becomes a witness to history.” Prof Alison Phipps. “Poetry is the mother tongue of Palestine . It’s the artistic medium that they move to,” says Phipps, who for 17 years has been involved in joint cultural programmes with the Islamic University of Gaza. With 95% of the Gaza university’s buildings damaged or destroyed by the Israeli bombing, all classes are online in precious moments when there is enough solar power to generate a brief online video meeting or, in this case, a poetry reading from disparate parts of Gaza via mobiles, laptops and consoles. Since the beginning of the war, 72 members of the university faculty and 543 students have been killed. In the same period, 2,860 students graduated. “Palestinian poetry has a long and influential tradition centred on themes of homeland, exile, memory, resistance, love, identity, displacement and survival,” Masri says. “It often combines lyrical beauty with political and human testimony, especially in response to displacement and war.” Some of the students’ poems are dedicated to the memory of their teacher, the Gazan poet Refaat Alareer, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on 6 December, 2023 along with his brother, nephew, sister and three of her children. Masri feels the students were answering the call of one of Alareer’s most famous poems, in which he says: “If I die / you must live / to tell my story … let it bring hope / let it be a tale.” A demonstrator holds a sign in the colours of the Palestinian flag inscribed with the words of Refaat Alareer’s poem If I must die, you must live during a march through central London in 2025. As 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.” Tawona Sitholé and Alison Phipps’ poetry collection.

Key points

• “In Gaza, poetry documents what cameras cannot always reach and what numbers can never explain.
• When destruction erases physical spaces, poetry becomes a witness to history.” Prof Alison Phipps.
• “Poetry is the mother tongue of Palestine .
• It’s the artistic medium that they move to,” says Phipps, who for 17 years has been involved in joint cultural programmes with the Islamic University of Gaza.
• With 95% of the Gaza university’s buildings damaged or destroyed by the Israeli bombing, all classes are online in precious moments when there is enough solar power to generate a brief online video…