I’ve been very inactive, which is nothing new if you’ve been here before. However, I break the silence to share an amazing book that you will not want to miss. With raw honesty and a beautiful style, I want to tell you about Forest of Noise: Poems, by Mosab Abu Toha.
- Format: 96 pages, Hardcover.
- Published: October 15, 2024, by Knopf.
- Genres and Tags: Poetry, social commentary, nonfiction, Palestine, genocide, mental health
“A powerful, capacious, and profound” (Ocean Vuong) new collection of poems about life in Gaza by an award-winning Palestinian poet.
Barely thirty years old, Mosab Abu Toha was already a well-known poet when the current siege of Gaza began. After the Israeli army bombed and destroyed his house, pulverizing a library he had painstakingly built for community use, he and his family fled for their safety. Not for the first time in their lives.
Somehow, amid the chaos, Abu Toha kept writing poems. These are those poems. Uncannily clear, direct, and beautifully tuned, they form one of the most astonishing works of art wrested from wartime. Here are directives for what to do in an air raid; here are lyrics about the poet’s wife, singing to his children to distract them. Huddled in the dark, Abu Toha remembers his grandfather’s oranges, his daughter’s joy in eating them.
Moving between glimpses of life in relative peacetime and absurdist poems about surviving in a barely livable occupation, Forest of Noise invites a wide audience into an experience that defies the imagination—even as it is watched live. Abu Toha’s poems introduce readers to his extended family, some of them no longer with us. This is an urgent, extraordinary, and arrestingly whimsical book. Searing and beautiful, it brings us indelible art in a time of terrible suffering.
I devoured this book! Not only because it’s short in print length, but because of the quality. It’s honest and beautiful with all the rawness that makes it shine. Also, don’t let the brevity fool you. It’s as impactful as it is brief. That’s another element that makes it stand out among other poetry books.
The author has a solid style that grabs you from the beginning. We are all familiar with what’s happening in Palestine at this point, but the descriptions and the feelings Mosab Abu Toha expresses are different. They are human, they are true, they come to life as you read them, feeling everything in the flesh. The same rawness I mentioned before might be triggering to some, but I would still encourage everyone to give it a chance.
Books are immortal, Palestine is immortal, and I found both aspects of immortality here because these pages capture the resilience and strength of Palestinians. It sparks admiration for these people and respect for the author, who shows it in all of its human imperfection but celebrates identity before anything else.
I’m eager to read something else from Mosab Abu Toha. Forest of Noise sets the bar high, and while every work is different from the other, this is for sure one of my favorite reads of this year. With a beautiful style and honest words, a proud identity rooted in culture, time, and heritage, it’s a book that will not leave readers indifferent towards the suffering, resilience, and power of Palestine.
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