Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear

Winner of the American Book Award, the Palestine Book Award and Arrowsmith Press's 2023 Derek Walcott Poetry Prize

National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry Finalist

"Written from his native Gaza, Abu Toha's accomplished debut contrasts scenes of political violence with natural beauty."-The New York Times

In this poetry debut Mosab Abu Toha writes about his life under siege in Gaza, first as a child, and then as a young father. A survivor of four brutal military attacks, he bears witness to a grinding cycle of destruction and assault, and yet, his poetry is inspired by a profound humanity.

These poems emerge directly from the experience of growing up and living in constant lockdown, and often under direct attack. Like Gaza itself, they are filled with rubble and the ever-present menace of surveillance drones policing a people unwelcome in their own land, and they are also suffused with the smell of tea, roses in bloom, and the view of the sea at sunset. Children are born, families continue traditions, students attend university, and libraries rise from the ruins as Palestinians go on about their lives, creating beauty and finding new ways to survive.

Accompanied by an in-depth interview (conducted by Ammiel Alcalay) in which Abu Toha discusses life in Gaza, his family origins, and how he came to poetry.

Praise for Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear:

"Mosab Abu Toha is an astonishingly gifted young poet from Gaza, almost a seer with his eloquent lyrical vernacular ... His poems break my heart and awaken it, at the same time. I feel I have been waiting for his work all my life."-Naomi Shihab Nye

"Though forged in the bleak landscape of Gaza, he conjures a radiance that echoes Milosz and Kabir. These poems are like flowers that grow out of bomb craters and Mosab Abu Toha is an astonishing talent to celebrate."-Mary Karr

"Mosab Abu Toha's Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear arrives with such refreshing clarity and voice amidst a sea of immobilizing self-consciousness. It is no great feat to say a complicated thing in a complicated way, but here is a poet who says it plain: 'In Gaza, some of us cannot completely die.' Later, 'This is how we survived.' It's remarkable. This is poetry of the highest order."-Kaveh Akbar

Praise for Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear and Mosab Abu Toha:

"There is a duality to the poems, a contrast of beauty and violence. Images of dust, concrete, and gunfire tell a story of growing up under siege. These same elements will stay with the reader for days. The book is very visual both in language and in photographs that make the lines hit even harder. Some of the forms and line breaks feel loose, but they are made with passion and striking details."—Booklist

"Mosab Abu Toha is an astonishingly gifted young poet from Gaza, almost a seer with his eloquent lyrical vernacular, his visions of life, continuity, time, possibility, and beauty. His poems break my heart and awaken it, at the same time. I feel I have been waiting for his work all my life."—Naomi Shihab Nye, author of The Tiny Journalist

"Mosab Abu Toha's elegant and unforgettable poetry calls me to celebrate the struggle to survive. Though forged in the bleak landscape of Gaza, he conjures a radiance that echoes Miłosz and Kabir. These poems are like flowers that grow out of bomb craters and Mosab Abu Toha is an astonishing talent to celebrate."—Mary Karr, author of Tropic of Squalor

"Mosab Abu Toha's Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear arrives with such refreshing clarity and voice amidst a sea of immobilizing self-consciousness. It is no great feat to say a complicated thing in a complicated way, but here is a poet who says it plain: 'In Gaza, some of us cannot completely die.' Later, 'This is how we survived.' It’s remarkable. This is poetry of the highest order."—Kaveh Akbar, author of Pilgrim Bell

"It has been amazing, and inspiring, to see how people surviving in the Gaza prison, subject to constant and vicious attack and living under conditions of brutal deprivation, continue to maintain their dignity and commitment to a better life. Mosab Abu Toha’s initiative to create a library and cultural center in Gaza is an outstanding example of these remarkable efforts. What he is seeking to achieve would make a very significant contribution to enriching the lives of Gazans and providing them with opportunities for a much better future. It merits strong support from everyone concerned with justice and basic human rights."—Noam Chomsky on the Edward Said Public Library founded by Mosab Abu Toha

“This is a debut collection by Mosab Abu Toha and it’s magnificent. The last book I read before reading this collection was Bittersweet by Susan Cain—a book about how not only is hardship inevitable, it often leads to amazing creative offerings. This couldn’t have been a better prelude to reading Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear. I’d be hard-pressed to tell you if the most common word in the collection is bomb or shrapnel or F-16s. The author has drawn on his childhood in Gaza for the material of this collection. With that heartbreaking material, an incredible and beautiful creative offering has risen from its ashes.”—Jennifer Willis Geraedts, Beagle and Wolf Books & Bindery, Park Rapids, MN

"In his searing and unflinching debut, Mosab Abu Toha writes of his beloved Gaza and the torments it continues to endure. These poems speak with palpable urgency. Nevertheless underneath the terror, there’s a lingering sense of optimism and survival: 'Through it all, the strawberries have never stopped growing.'"—James Fraser, Grolier Poetry Book Shop, Cambridge, MA

"In a world that is being destroyed by forces that seem too big to fight, Mosab Abu Toha's poems show us the disappearing beauty of his homeland and the human cost of our apathy and passivity in the wake of our government's violence. May these delicate and powerful poems stir your heart and drive you to action."—Mandy Medley, Pilsen Community Books, Chicago, IL

"'We deserve a better death,' begins one of Mosab Abu Toha's poems halfway through his remarkable collection, one that both honors the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died since the 1940s, strangers in their own homeland; and celebrates the ways in which Palestinians today affirm their pasts, their presents, and their futures in the face of daily terror. The movement across the poems, fluid and urgent, brings a spectrum of Palestinian experiences and voices to life, filtered through Toha's incandescent voice. 'Why is it when I dream of Palestine, / that I see it in black and white?' he asks in 'Notebooks,' but for the reader, Palestine, in all its brutal occupation and its determination to survive, shines in awesome color."—Anna Claire Weber, White Whale Bookstore, Pittsburgh, PA

Vorwort

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Galleys available

National TV and radio campaign includes The Daily Show, CNN, MSNBC, Late Night with Seth Meyers, PBS NewsHour; radio interviews across the country.

National print campaign includes: New York Review of Books, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, American Poetry Review, American Poets, Publishers Weekly, New Yorker, and more.

Pursuing excerpts in the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Paris Review, Poetry Magazine, poets.org., Poetry Daily, and more.

Online/social media campaign includes Boston Review, Poetry Foundation, Paris Review, Literary Hub, and more.; Promotion via City Lights Twitter (136K followers), City Lights Facebook (50K likes), City Lights Instagram (47K followers. Promotion through City Lights newsletter campaign (17K subscribe…