A review by floatinthevoid
Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza by Mosab Abu Toha

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Love prevails amongst the ruins. That is the closest to what I can say to describe this collection of poetry. Mosab has known violence since he was born. He never wondered why water is scarce or why so often electricity was cut off, that is until he saw a kid his age being carried on the shoulders of people. He was only eight when he started to realize the harsh environment he lived in. Using choice of words that gives the reader a glimpse of memories what childhood in Gaza is like, or what it could have been, Mosab's poetry is quite magnetic: it pulls you along to a journey of both the beautiful and the horrific, he asked you to not look away, to see and listen and remember. 

"Can you take off your sunglasses and look at us here, 
see how the rain has flooded our streets, 
how the children’s umbrellas have been pierced 
by a prickly downpour on their way to school? 
The trees you see have been watered with our tears. 
They bear no fruit. The red roses take their color from our blood. 
They smell of death."

One theme that occurs often in his poetry is counting: numbers, time, people. People who live with military threats all their lives learned to count things more than what people in peaceful places need. 

"Children learn their numbers best 
when they can count how many homes or schools 
were destroyed, how many mothers and fathers 
were wounded or thrown into jail."

Gazans lives are tied to counting days, looking at the clock, waiting, when it'll be their turn. 

“'Stop ticking! You’re hurting my ears.'”

For people who only witness the destructions caused by zionists through the screen, we use numbers to calculate how terrible the loss of that many people, we yell and shout this big numbers so the people in power would listen and do something– yet to them, 

"But it’s not about numbers. Even years, they are not numbers."

It's their father, mother, brother, sister, granfather, cousin, neighbor, friends, teachers, they can't not believe that every live matters. It's human lives from their land that they have come to love and wants to protect, they are not numbers. But they still have to count their brothers and sisters in dire situations. 

"Even we, hearing the bomb 
as it fell, threw ourselves 
to the ground, each of us counting the others around them. 
We were safe, but our hearts 
still ache."

Yet, despite the deaths and rubbles, Mosab saw "the strawberries have never stopped growing." That whatever they have they love.

"We love what we have, no matter how little,
because if we don’t, everything will be gone. If we don’t,
we will no longer exist, since there will be
nothing here for us."

Gazans knows how to love their land, the people, and the time they spent with others. They have to. 

About resilience, about survival, people in Gaza lived through the worst nightmares and still hope. They are desperate for little moment of peace, but they can't show the world they can't give up. There they were born and theirs it will always be. 

"One day, we will be born again when you’re not 
there. 
Because this land knows us. She is our mother. 
When we die, we’re just resting in her womb 
until the darkness is cleared."

I think I have learnt so much about life from Palestinians for the last couple of months. I learnt so much about love from a place that constantly gets destroyed. Mosab is one of the many voices that I read and listen to, about what it's like to be Gazans, to be in a place so beautiful yet brutally destroyed so often. This collection of poetry is a testament of humanity. It should move you. If it doesn't, then I don't know what to tell you.