Mosab Abu Toha

Mosab Abu Toha is a young Palestinian poet from Gaza. A graduate in English Literature, he enjoys writing stories and poems of his own. Mosab taught English at UNRWA schools in Gaza from 2017 until 2019. Mosab is the founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s only English-language library. As many of Gaza’s libraries were destroyed, he began a campaign in 2014 to collect donations of English-language books in what would become Gaza’s first public library for English books. Noam Chomsky, who has donated several autographed books to the library, wrote on Mosab’s behalf describing the library as “a unique resource, and what is more a refuge and a rare flicker of light and hope for the young people of Gaza.” Source

Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear

For Alicia M. Quesnel, MD

When you open my ear, touch it

gently.

My mother’s voice lingers somewhere inside.

Her voice is the echo that helps recover my equilibrium

when I feel dizzy during my attentiveness.

You may encounter songs in Arabic,

poems in English I recite to myself,

or a song I chant to the chirping birds in our backyard.

When you stitch the cut, don’t forget to put all these back in my ear.

Put them back in order as you would do with books on your shelf.

The drone’s buzzing sound,

the roar of an F-16,

the screams of bombs falling on houses,

on fields, and on bodies,

of rockets flying away—

rid my small ear canal of them all.

Spray the perfume of your smiles on the incision.

Inject the song of life into my veins to wake me up.

Gently beat the drum so my mind may dance with yours,

my doctor, day and night.

Published:

2021

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2023

Themes:

Identity

Poems of Place

Violence & War