Introduction by Jehan Bseiso

Nothing about Haidar al-Ghazali’s poetry is occupied. Neither his imagination, nor the choice of words and images. This twenty one year old Palestinian poet from Gaza writes with the same ease about love as he does about genocide. His poetry is a refusal to sacrifice tenderness, no matter the subject. 

Haidar has been writing throughout the genocide, in the face of the genocide, publishing poems, diaries and epitaphs for friends. He has been read worldwide and has emerged as one of the most original and influential voices of his generation.

These three quiet and powerful poems have been chosen from a complete diwan written in Gaza, as yet unpublished, and appearing here now for the first time. Tenderly translated by Zainab al-Qaissi, they return us to sites of immeasurable ruin, to the pressing pen of the census officer, the fingerless hands counting losses and children playing a game called “home”. 

Translated by Zainab al-Qaissi

The census officer will come.
He’ll inspect
the streets and houses. And
with a ballpoint pen,
he’ll record our losses. Then
depart
without seeing my heart.

The census officer will come.
He’ll inspect
the streets and houses. Then
leave me to count my ruins
with fingerless hands.

To own a small house in Palestine
means
wiping your fingerprints from the cooking utensils,
your tears from the pillows;
not feeding the birds at morning;
ripping up the photo album
and the letters;
wiping the kiss of memory from the mirror.
The soldiers will come,
to kill you on the charge of life.
And you must forget your shadow
on the walls;
Soldiers will come –
to kill you for being alive.
Forget your shadow on the walls.
They’ll tire of haunting blood in it,
never learning
the secret of the light
in you.

In childhood,
I made my siblings
a tent of pillows
and blankets.
It would fall on us,
and we’d laugh.
The tent walked us far,
out of the house
and the homeland.
It fell on us,
and we died.
Next time,
I will make my siblings
a homeland
that returns them home.