Mosab Abu Toha — Poems as Teachers | Ep 4

The poem unfolds on a beach in Yaffa, where tourists, kites, and waves create a bustling but complex tapestry that intertwines with themes of loss and nostalgia.

The setting of the poem is a beach in Yaffa, with a lighthearted atmosphere of tourists, kites, and waves contrasted by a sense of loss and nostalgia.

The poem is set on a beach in Yaffa, capturing a scene that, on the surface, feels cheerful and carefree with tourists and kites. However, beneath this lighthearted veneer lies a profound sense of loss and a yearning for what was. This contrast amplifies the emotional gravity of the poem, as it navigates through the nuances of memory and displacement.

The sensory details, such as the characters walking barefoot, the soft index finger drawing in the sand, and the sounds of the mosque and the waves, create a vivid and immersive scene.

Sensory details abound, grounding the reader in the immediacy of the experience. The characters walk barefoot, an act that ties them intimately to the land—their connection to it palpable and physical. A soft index finger traces patterns in the sand, a fleeting attempt to capture something ephemeral. Meanwhile, the soundtrack of this scene mixes the playful laughter of tourists with the tranquil yet insistent call to prayer from a mosque—a reminder of the area's cultural tapestry.

The setting also serves as a symbolic backdrop for the actual memory and mapping out of their former home, representing the tension ...

Masab Abu Toha employs a subtle and creative language strategy in his poetry to reshape and redefine the Palestinian experience, challenging the negative connotations often associated with it.

The poet, Masab Abu Toha, deliberately reframes and reasserts verbs and phrases often used to denigrate Palestinians, reclaiming them to define the Palestinian experience.

Abu Toha's unique approach involves clever conjugations and line breaks, which provide new perspectives on the words commonly used to diminish Palestinians. He takes words that might carry threatening or oppressive connotations and fills them with positive, life-affirming meanings.

Words like "draw," "step," and "make tea" are imbued with new meaning, shifting the narrative from one of restriction and oppression to one of agency, hospitality, and a connection to the land.

For instance, Abu Toha uses the verb "draw," where a line break might suggest something confrontational like drawing a weapon, but he instead turns it to describe the act of drawing a map, a creative and constructive action. Similarly, the admonition "don't step over there," typically implying constraints or hidden dangers, is reframed in the poem to evoke deliberate and thoughtful steps taken on a beach.

This linguistic reclamation is a powerful tool for the poet to assert the Palestinian identity and challenge the dominant narratives about their experiences.

In his poetry, the phrase "the mosque on the hilltop calls for," followed by a line break, could easily be misinterpreted as something aggressive. Abu Toha, ...

The poem delves into the sorrowful and conflicted emotions of characters grappling with the loss of their former home, now just a memory or a “ghost house.” It explores the difficulty in preserving and passing down memories against the tide of displacement and change.

The poem grapples with the deep-seated conflict and lament over the loss of the characters' former home, which is now a "ghost house" that can only be remembered and reimagined.

The characters, Ibrahim and his brother, find themselves in an ongoing debate about the exact location of the kitchen in what once was their family home. This argument signifies the struggle to maintain a grasp on fading memories in the face of upheaval. As they walk towards the beach, removing their shoes, they engage in a bittersweet attempt to reconstruct a place that has been lost to time. Ibrahim's actions of drawing a map with his finger in the sand highlight the desperate need to remember and to ground themselves in a sense of place that no longer exists.

The characters' ongoing argument about the location of the kitchen within their former home reflects the difficulty of preserving and passing down memories in the face of displacement and upheaval.

The sensory details of the poem convey a deep sense of loss. Tourist children run by, oblivious to the anguish of Ibrahim and his brother, who are acutely aware of the waves' constant murmur—an intrusive reminder of the present that drowns out the echoes of the past. While one brother insists the kitchen stood a bit more to the north, there is a shared vigilance not to desecrate the spot where their father might have slept, indicating how memories are sanctified as the physical world changes. ...

The emotional weight of the poem conveys a prayer-like yearning, tying deeply to the Palestinian experience.

The poem is presented as a form of prayer, with the characters' actions of touching the earth and the invocation of the mosque's call to prayer imbuing the work with a sense of reverence and spiritual longing.

The act of touching the earth and the ambient sound of the mosque's call to prayer within the poem suggest a spiritual framework. These elements combine to present the poem itself as a vessel for prayer, demonstrating reverence for the land and a deeply felt longing for a past now inaccessible. There is a connection made between the physical actions of the characters and the spiritual acts of observance, paralleling the gesture of drawing a map in sand to the sacred touches of prayerful devotion.

The poem itself becomes a manifestation of the characters' (and the poet's) desire for freedom, safety, and a future on their ancestral land, despite the challenges and losses they have faced.

The poem articulates a collective yearning that is both individual and shared. The simple, yet evocative, imagery of looking towards a kitchen window that once framed familial life and the absence of the mint symbolizes the disconnection from their native soil and heritage. This yearning transforms the personal and historical losses into a universal prayer for a return to a place of origin, freedom, and safety, capturing the essence of the Palestinian experie ...