Deema Shehabi (born 1970) is a Kuwaiti-born poet and writer. The daughter of Palestinian parents, she relocated to the United States in 1988. Her poems, for which she has been nominated for a Pushcart prize, have been widely published in literary journals and compiled in anthologies. She now lives in California.

Achievements and Awards

– She was nominated for a Pushcart prize

– Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous literary journals including The Atlanta Review, Bat City Review, Crab Orchard, The Mississippi Review, Drunken Boat, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and the Kenyon Review.

She has published works in anthologies such as The Poetry of Arab Women and Contemporary Arab-American Poetry . Deema Shehabi has also worked in writing and editing for several book publishers and magazines, including Ulysses Press, Nuclear Times, and most recently, Veggie Life where she was managing editor.

Gate of Freedom

Lovers of asparagus, alive
as hummingbirds, place their nostrils
over a low cloud, wet of air.
It’s the year of green hills
in California that early spring;
the evening is blue-split between the first
snow on the mountain top,
and a computer screen, where news of a man
whose body is eating itself, scythes
the long-stemmed breaths in the room.
“Do not weep if my heart fails,” he writes.
“I am your son.”

Gate of Love

Son I have. Your hands bulge
with pear tree blossoms.
You are bellow and sweat,
hunger and bread.
I part the fog to find you
through a grimy crowd of kids.
Before you give in to the affection
that soils you in public

Of harvest and flight

Beneath a wet harvest of stars in a Gaza sky,
my mother tells me how orchards
once hid the breach of fallen oranges,
and how during a glowing night

of beseeching God in prayer,
when the night nets every breath
of every prayer,
my uncle, a child then, took flight

from the roof of the house.
The vigilant earth had softened
just before his body fell to the ground,
but still there’s no succumbing to flight’s abandon;

our bodies keep falling on mattresses,
piles of them are laid out on living room floors
to sleep multitudes of wedding visitors:
the men in their gowns

taunt roosters until dusk,
while women taunt
with liquid harvest in their eyes,
and night spirits and soldiers

continue to search the house
between midnight and three in the morning.
On the night of my uncle’s nuptial,
I watch my mother as she passes

a tray of cigarettes to rows of radiant guests
with a fuschia flower in her hair . . . .
Years before this, I found a photograph
of her sitting on my father’s lap,

slender legs swept beneath her,
like willow filaments in river light.
His arm was firm around her waist;
his eyes bristled, as though the years of his youth

were borders holding him back
and waiting to be scattered.
Those were the years when my mother
drew curtains tightly over Windows

to shut out the frost world of the Potomac;
she sifted through pieces of news
with her chest hunched over a radio,
as though each piece when found

became a story and within it
a space for holding our endless
debris.  But in truth,
it was only 1967, during the war,

three years before I was born . . . .
But tonight, in Gaza beneath the stars,
I turn towards my mother
and ask her how a daughter

can possibly grow beyond
her mother’s flight.  There’s no answer;
instead she leans over me
with unreadable long-ago eyes

and points to the old wall:
the unbolting of our roots there,
beside this bitter lemon tree,
and here was the crumbling

of the house of jasmine
arching over doorways,
the house of roosters
and child-flight legends,

this house of girls
with eyes like simmering seeds.

Further Reading:

–Interview with Deema Shehabi

–Deema Shehabi’s debut poetry book is Thirteen Departures from the Moon

Sources:

http://www.poets.org

www.all4palestine.com/

Remi Kanazi (born 1981) is a Palestinian-American performance poet and human rights activist based in New York. 
He is the editor of the anthology of hip hop, poetry and art, Poets for Palestine (2008), and the author of the collection of poetry, Poetic Injustice: Writings on Resistance and Palestine (2011). He has toured hundreds of venues across the US, Canada, Europe and the Middle East.

Kanazi’s father, a physician, fled from Haifa, Palestine with his family at a young age before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. His maternal grandmother was seven months pregnant with Kanazi’s mother when she was forced out of her home in Jaffa, Palestine. Although his family was deeply affected by Palestinian dispossession, Kanazi felt almost entirely disconnected from his Palestinian heritage but he never forgot the stories he heard from his family. Years later, all these stories were the inspiration for his work.

Kanazi writes and performs political poetry addressing topics such as human rights, Palestine, Iraq, and islamophobia. He talks in his work about a system of oppression and what´s being done to a people.

He  is the editor of Poets for Palestine (Al Jisser Group, August 2008), a collection of hip hop, poetry and art featuring Palestinian poets such as Suheir Hammad, Nathalie Handal, Fady Joudah, Annemarie Jacir, Mahmoud Darwish, Naomi Shihab and Kanazi himself, as well as African American poets Patricia Smith and Amiri Baraka.

In 2011, Kanazi came out with his first collection, Poetic Injustice: Writings on Resistance and Palestine, a volume of poetry including a CD; he has also been a writer in residence and an advisory board member for the Palestine Writing Workshop, teaching spoken word poetry to youngsters in Palestine.

A Poem for Gaza

I never knew death

until I saw the bombing

of a refugee camp

craters

filled with

dismembered legs

and splattered   torsos

but no sign of a face

the only impression

a fading scream

I never understood pain

until a seven-year-old gir

lclutched my hand

stared up at mewith soft brown eyes

waiting for answers

I didn’t have any

I had muted breath

and dry pens in my back pocket

that couldn’t fill pages

of understanding or resolution

in her other hand

she held a key

to her grandmother’s house

but I couldn’t unlock the cell

that caged her older brothers

they said:we slingshot dreams

so the other side

will feel our father’s presence!

a craftsman

built homes

in areaswhere no one was building

when he fell

silence

a .50 caliber bullet

tore through his neck

shredding his vocal cords

too close to the wallhis hammer

must have been a weapon

he must have been a weapon

encroaching on settlement hill

sand demographics

so his daughter

studies mathematics

seven explosions

times

eight bodies

equals

four congressional resolutions

seven Apache helicopters

times

eight Palestinian villages

equals

silence and a second Nakba

our birthrate

minus

their birthrate

equals

one sea and 400 villages re-erected

one state

plus

two peoples

…and she can’t stop crying

never knew revolution

or the proper equation

tears at the paper

with her fingertip

ssearching for answers

but only has teachers

looks up to the sky

to see Stars of David

demolishing squalor

with Hellfire missiles

she thinks back

words and memories

of his last hug

before he turned and fell

now she pumps

dirty water from wells

while settlements

divide and conquer

and her father’s killer

sits beachfront

with European vernacular

this is our land!, she said

she’s seven years old

this is our land!

she doesn’t need history books

or a schoolroom teacher

she has these walls

this skyher refugee camp

she doesn’t know the proper equation

but she sees my dry pens

no longer waiting for my answers

just holding her grandmother’s key

searching

for ink

Video

Normalize This!

Further Reading:

–Interview: Remi Kanazi on BDS and ‘hurt feelings’

Source:

http://www.poeticinjustice.net/

http://www.all4palestine.com

Rafeef Ziadah is a Palestinian performance poet and human rights activist based in London. Her performances of poems like ‘We Teach Life, Sir’ and ‘Shades of Anger’ went viral online within days of their release.   
She received an Ontario Arts Council Grant from the Word of Mouth programme to create her debut spoken-word album Hadeel. Since releasing her album, she has toured many countries, performing poetry and conducting workshops. She was chosen to represent Palestine at the South Bank center Poets Olympiad in 2012.

Although Ziadah began writing at a very early age, her first public performance was not until 2004, while studying at York University. Since her poetic debut, she has done much over the past decade to raise awareness of Palestinian suffering, both the oppression within Palestine as well as Palestinian displacement across the globe.

Ziadah was born in Beirut, a third generation refugee. Some of her first childhood memories were of the 1982 siege and bombing of Beirut.

As an active member of the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, Ziadah’s primary purpose is to seek equality and justice against racism and extreme Zionist ideologies.

Cultivate Hope

Our Spring in Palestine is born in a prison cell

Our Spring in Palestine is born shackled to a hospital bed

Our Spring in Palestine is born with an administrative detention order against it.

But, it blossoms even in hunger!

I pray you strength

I pray you justice

I pray you freedom

Hana’, I pray your heart muscle, holding all of us tonight

holds on a day stronger – a sunrise longer – a day longer – a sunrise stronger

Though forgive me sister, I forgot prayers some time ago

lost them in allies in refugee camps

too crowded with shrapnel memory

when sound barrier breaking – skies breaking – sound breaking

wasn’t sure our voices would reach god anymore

That same year 82 you were born.

But you cultivate hope in me

so I light candles and kneel to whisper:

I pray you strength

I pray you justice

I pray you freedom

You cultivate hope in the rest of us.

Cultivate that part hungry for freedom – hungry for justice.

Lost in roadmaps to nowhere – to anywhere but the shores of Akka.

You cultivate hope long lost in their “pragmatic” solutions.

In your hunger – we find our own.

You cultivate hope in the rest of us.

In your strength – we are no longer

67 – Palestinians

48 – Palestinians

No numbers dividing us by massacres attached to our skin

No numbers for years dividing us by massacres attached to our skin

No negotiating tables to dine over in silence

No negotiating tables to dine over in silence and

No intellectual conversations to argue how lucky Israeli women are

how lucky / how free they serve in the army?

One of them handcuffed you as others beat you

One ordered you to strip naked

One dragged you across the floor

One promised severe punishment

In your silence you are stronger than each of them.

But You cultivate hope in the rest of us.

What do your captures know of heart muscles

Born to the beat of bombs over Beirut?

Born against a state of siege?

Born to a rhythm louder than guns?

Born free

What do they know of us?

Hearts as soft as child hands

learned to pick up rock

with the care of farmers loving harvest

Our Spring in Palestine is born in a prison cell

Our Spring in Palestine is born shackled to a hospital bed

Our Spring in Palestine is born with an administrative order against it.

But, our Spring in Palestine blossoms even in hunger

Their walls can only surround them.

Their prisons can only hold their dreams still.

Your spirit – like Spring – will always be free

Your spirit – our spirit – like Spring – will always be free

I pray us strength I pray us justice I pray us freedom

Achievements and Awards

Rafeef started performing poetry in Toronto in 2004 with the spoken word collective Pueblo Unido and is the winner of the 2007 Mayworks Festival Poetry Face-Off. Rafeef Ziadah launched her album of collected spoken word poetry put to music at Toronto’s Concord Cafe late last fall. She performed a few selected poems to an audience of friends, fans, musicians and of course Palestinian political activists. On Ziadah’s anticipated debut album Hadeel, you’ll find a selection of 10 poems that established this Palestinian spoken word artist’s reputation as a political poet in Toronto over the past six years. Her work is accompanied by a diverse range of musicians, adding a new layer of depth to the work.
Video

Rafeef Ziadah – ‘We teach life, sir’

Rafeef Ziadah – ‘Shades of anger’

Further reading:

– Rafeef Ziadah – ‘We teach life, sir’

– An interview with Palestinian poet, Rafeef Ziadah

Sources:

http://www.rafeefziadah.net

http://smpalestine.com

http://www.all4palestine.com

Fiction/ 90 Min/ 2004

Directed by: Saverio Costanzo

Synopsis: Mohammad, his wife and their five children live in a large, isolated house located halfway between a Palestinian village and an Israeli settlement.
The house, in the crossfire of the two sides, is a strategic lookout point that the Israeli army decides to seize, confining the family to a few downstairs rooms in daytime and a single room at night. Mohammad refuses to leave this home and, reinforced by his principles against violence, decides to find a way to keep his family together in the house until the Israeli soldiers move on.

Awards:

Best Actor at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema.

Best New Director at the David di Donatello Awards.

Silver Ribbon for Best New Director at the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists.

Golden Leopard for Best Director, Bronze Leopard for Best Actor and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury (Special Mention) at the Locarno International Film Festival.

FIPRESCI Prize for Best Film at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

Silver Spike for Best Director at the Valladolid Film Festival.

Watch trailer

Fiction/ 90 Min/ 2005

Directed by: Hany Abu-Assad 

Synopsis: Paradise Now follows Palestinian childhood friends Said and Khaled who live in Nablus and have been recruited for suicide attacks in Tel Aviv. It focuses on what would be their last days together.

Awards:

Best Foreign Language Film at the 63rd Golden Globe Awards.

Amnesty International Film Prize AGICOA, Blue Angel Award and Reader Jury of the “Berliner Morgenpost” at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Best Screenplay at the European Film Awards.

Best Foreign Film at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Best Foreign Language Film at the National Board of Review Awards.

Best Feature Film and Best Editing at the Netherlands Film Festival.

Best Director at the Durban International Film Festival.

Best Foreign Language Film at the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards.

Best Foreign Film at the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards.

Watch trailer

Short Fiction/ 19 Min/ 2006

Directed by: Sameh Zoabi

Synopsis: On their journey home, a young Palestinian boy and his father are victims of the conditions enforced by Israeli military forces. The film opens the viewer’s eyes not only to the direct results of the current situation, but also the father’s attempts to bring up his son in a more promising atmosphere.

Documentary/ 72 Min/ 2007

Directed by: Edward Mast & Linda Bevis

Synopsis:

Palestine For Beginners is a fast-moving guide to the roots of conflict, key historical and current events, and the characters and motivations behind the ongoing crisis. Filmed before a live audience and professionally edited, Palestine For Beginners is a 60 minute presentation with an additional 10 minutes of Q & A, all divided into chapters for reference and classroom use.

Edited by Dr. Mahdi Abdul Hadi

“Jerusalem is Arab nationalism’s bride”; so wrote the Iraqi poet Muthaffer Al-Nawwab. Indeed, the city holds a lofty place in the concept of Arab identity, yet it is also a place that has seen more than its share of strife and contention. 
Yet as Arab Jerusalemites are increasingly persecuted, and as the attempts to pull Jerusalem further away from the Arab World continue, the city’s iconic status only grows in the eyes of all Arabs – be they Christian, Muslim, or secular. This bond is as intangible as it is incontrovertible, making it difficult to define and examine.

The Arab League named Jerusalem its “capital of Arab culture” for 2009, and although Israeli occupation authorities have, predictably, intervened to prevent and disturb celebrations in the city, Jerusalem remains a unique place whose people and visitors reflect diverse dynasties and cultures.

Culture is the embodiment of identity – it is how we define ourselves and our place in the world. The aim here is to present a vision of culture in the Holy City, as manifested in the accomplishments of selected writers, artists, teachers, and all others who have made the city of Jerusalem and Palestinian culture what it is today. Thereby the celebration of culture is not limited to local Palestinian or Arab culture but considers also the achievements of others since this particular city, throughout its history, has embraced so many different peoples, religions, languages and ideas, all which legacies of artistic expressions of all kinds.

Jerusalem is first and foremost known around the world as a Holy City. To be sure, it acts as such for millions of Arabs, both Christian and Muslim, as well as Jews. For Arabs the city is Al-Quds, “The Holy.” It is the site of Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa, “The Farthest Mosque”, as well as of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, in addition to dozens of other sacred sites. Holy places dot the city’s landscape, and millions of visitors each year are drawn by its mystique of history and sanctity.

This juried exhibit features works by twelve artists in a variety of media that speak to Jerusalem’s complex historical, religious and emotional significance and consider the need for a just and peaceful solution to the conflict, recognizing the rights of Palestinians in the city.

Still, Jerusalem is much more. For many Arabs and Palestinians Jerusalem represents the symbol for loss and hope of recovery, which has been expressed in poetry, paintings, and other forms of expression through the last decades. It is a living, breathing city with a remarkable history and a vibrant Arab culture. Arab Jerusalemites are a resilient and striking people living among an amalgamation of international influences. The heritage and history of Jerusalem can be overwhelming at times. The beginnings of the Islamic Empire can be found within the walls of the Old City, for example, and such historical significance can be both a burden and a blessing. Yet the importance of the cultural and historical aspects of Jerusalem in the eyes of Arabs as a whole cannot be overstated. The writing, painting, and other forms of expression that have been produced with Jerusalem in mind are a testimony to its centrality in the hearts and minds of the Arab world.

Unfortunately, the narrative of Jerusalem is one that is rife with conflict. The city today is not one of peace; it is one of separation, racism, and hostility. Jerusalem has been reduced to a political pawn, a final status issue that lies at the heart of the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict but that no one is ready to touch for fear of throwing the tenuous peace process into further doubt. Yet, the difficulties that surround access and rights in the city for Arabs have only increased their desire to maintain it as a part of their lives. This sentiment is especially true for those Palestinians who live so near and yet are kept away just the same. The world must realize that Jerusalem should be a free and open city, not an oppressive border town where an entire swath of its inhabitants are discriminated against.

In the end, culture is about our interactions with our environments, our fellow men, and ourselves. Arabs have a bond to the city that is different than connection held with any other city in the world. Mecca and Medina are holy sites whose political implications do not match those of Jerusalem. It is an international city, and the interactions between such disparate populations are evident in the streets of Jerusalem everyday. These days, though, that coexistence is rare. There is no cooperation in terms of urban planning, architectural integrity, or culture. The stark contrasts that have resulted prevent Jerusalem from being a single, cohesive entity. Rather, it is a divided city, and it remains to be seen whether this disunion can ever be reconciled.

Arabs have a long history of bringing culture and prosperity to the Holy City, and it is important to go beyond simple reminiscing and instead look at what those contributions have meant to Jerusalem and to the Arab World at large. Just as Arabs have had a profound effect on the city, the city has done the same in return.

Neither the Palestinians’ dispossession and dispersal into various cultural realities, nor 62 years Nakba and assaults on and oppression of Palestinian education, journalism, literature, art, symbolism and folklore, have succeeded in destroying the determination of the Palestinian people to resist through culture, preserve their identity and heritage, and protect their roots. As a result, it is a great diversity of styles, genres and media that characterizes Palestinians’ artistic expressions.

On the occasion of Al-Quds – Capital of Arab Culture 2009, PASSIA has produced this compilation of aspects of culture in the city in a bid to present the rich Arab-Palestinian culture between ancient heritage and modernity and to expand knowledge of the cultural diversity of the Palestinians. In addition, this publication features not only Palestinian-Arab poems and poets, authors, painters and other artists, but also acknowledges other international literary or art pieces that have been inspired by this unique city. The aim here is not to present an exhaustive survey but rather a representative overview of artwork celebrating Jerusalem’s universal and thus international unique characteristics as well as cultures all over the world together with the rich Palestinian culture in Jerusalem.

Dr. Mahdi Abdul Hadi
Jerusalem

Source:

http://passia.org/publications/Jerusalem-of-art/intro.htm

Throughout its history, Jerusalem has been not only the religious center for the three monotheistic faiths, but also an important political and cultural focal point for its inhabitants. 
Having withstood numerous wars and battles over the years, the city still remains the heart of Palestine and at the core of the unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict.

Since the occupation in 1967, consecutive Israeli governments have zealously pursued a policy aimed at changing the city’s Arab character and ‘Judaizing’ East Jerusalem to create a new geopolitical reality that guarantees Israel’s territorial, demographic, and religious control over the entire city. Over many years and in violation of international law (especially regarding the transfer of civilians to occupied territory), Israel has expropriated huge areas of land in occupied East Jerusalem and built a series of settlements. At the same time, they have deprived Palestinians in the city of their rights to build housing and infrastructure and the provision of proper services.

In recent years, increasingly elaborate Israeli strategies have been introduced to consolidate exclusive control and claimed sovereignty over Jerusalem, and which make any negotiations on sharing an open city almost meaningless.

Jerusalem is a very complex city and the realities of the situation on the ground make it a powder keg, not only in national-political terms, but also socio-economically. Israeli policies impact on every aspect of the daily lives of Palestinians in the city.

This reader is intended to shed light on Israel’s ongoing plans and policies aimed at further strengthening its grip over the city to the detriment of the Palestinian population. It provides a brief overview of the history and the religious, legal and demographic aspects of the Jerusalem question, demonstrating in detail the geopolitical means employed by Israel to ensure that the city can never be “shared” along any lines, and hindering any Palestinian plans to develop Arab East Jerusalem and declare it the capital of a future Palestinian state. Chapters cover issues of residency rights and housing, examine the situation in the Old City, and discuss negotiations with regard to Jerusalem. Israeli municipal policies implemented in the city are detailed, as well as the current situation in the educational, health and economic sectors.

In light of this information, in conjunction with the building of the separation barrier and demographic developments, one wonders if and how Jerusalem can ever be a peaceful, open, shared city. Intervention is urgently needed by the international community to protect Palestinian rights in the city and help to ensure that all residents enjoy the same rights, dignity, and welfare.

Dr. Mahdi Abdul Hadi
Chiarman of PASSIA – Jerusalem

Source:

http://www.passia.org/

Jacob J Nammar’s new memoir is an account of growing up in Jerusalem before, during, and after the Nakba. 
It addresses the lives of the Palestinians who remained in the Israeli-occupied part of West Jerusalem after the Nakba, remarkably free of bitterness. His account describes what it is like to be marginalised in your own country, and to lose everything you have.

Source:

http://www.palestinebookawards.com/