Winner of the 2024 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, selected by Hanif Abdurraqib, comes a subversive collection about Palestinian resistance, liberation and art
Written across Palestine and its diaspora—from Gaza and the West Bank to the United States—Intifadas is a subtly transgressive poetry collection about uprising in its many forms—in art, politics, and in our most personal relationships. Whether by dumping black paint on a park where a tank and fighter jet commemorate a war, or by trying to rescue a moth trapped in a garage, the defiant and resilient voices in this collection subvert traditional narratives of loss. Furious, tender, and darkly funny, Intifadas asks what art can do in the face of catastrophe, and answers with poems that refuse easy consolations.
From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free. Poetry on resistance will never cease to baffle me. I don't quite understand how someone can take the most heinous situation possible (A literal genocide) and turn it into such profound prose. It's magic, if nothing else. Poetry is the highest form of art, it has to be. How else could humans face such tragedy, such horror and create pieces like this? Poems such as these? Free Palestine. Read this book. Educate yourself on Palestinian liberation and the current genocide.
Thank you to Edelweiss for the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.