Intifadas

by Edward Salem

Winner of 2024 Sarabande 2024 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the Top 10 Poetry collections for Spring 2026, featured in Literary Hub, excerpts featured in The Slowdown, The Believer and the American Academy of Poets magazine


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.

Genres: Poetry

122 pages, Paperback

Published April 21, 2026

Reviews

[Carey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sealey Challenge 2026: 29/31

[Isa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sealey Challenge #3

There is bite in these poems.

[Nathaniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the most beautiful writing I’ve read. It reeks of the desperation to be seen.

[Burgi Zenhaeusern · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unspeakable vulnerability rises from these poems and tenderness for their speaker, slingshot in hand and caught right before the moment of aiming that rock. These are painfully honest, uncomfortable poems, and I love them for what they posit, what they effect by recording actions fantasized about or planned out in detail, then halted in the limbo of an action in suspense. What is an intifada of the mind? What is control, what the lack thereof? How to aim one's rage most effectively and at whom/what? What happens in the space between planning and last minute doubting/wondering/altering/re-directing? What better medium than the controlled environment of poetry to freely play with all these questions? These poems perform, as in performative art. They act upon the reading mind, almost tangibly so. You have to read the book in its entirety, though, to be in its experiences.

[Rhiley Jade · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[renping · Rating 4 out of 5]

this poet constructs an image, a bit sheepishly, which he finds interesting. he has a point to make. there is also the image of himself, the artist, seeking the perfect image with which to make his point. then he shows his images failing in different ways.. they are absurd and the mechanics fall apart sometimes. also, he, with some sense of humor, doubts the power of his metaphor against this vast and present eschatological evil...

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

"All I could think was the scores
of me my age and younger
who would be slaughtered,
and how I wanted it anyway,
the uprising."

Only a Palestinian can make me laugh and cry like this at the same time.

[Lila 🤸‍♀️📚😝🦭 · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful and devastating. surprisingly narrative for a collection of political poetry. shoutout dori for buying me this book. i almost never read poetry collections, but this one was absolutely worthwhile.

[Alena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Final Montage:

…Struggled not to laugh, couples therapist’s faux pas—
kept saying *death grip*.

The one time I cried in front of my therapist,
my dog had just died.

My therapist cried during our final session:
“It’s a genocide.”

You take too lightly what our destruction portends
for Americans.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Free Palestine.

[April Baer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe my favorite poetry collection this year. Surprises on every page. Some are heavy, of course, but many have a streak of absurdity and humor I savored. He’s making this look so easy.

[Wyrd Witch · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Joey Damiano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Humorous. Horrifying. Beautiful. I'll reread this over and over.

[Angry.Sad.Motivated · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting mix of poetry and prose, some incredible imagery and clearly punched through with love and pain.