Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry

Authors

• George Abraham
• Noor Hindi

Summary

A love letter to Palestinian ancestors, their descendants, and their land, to all anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles, to a history that will never be forgotten, and to a future in which there thrives a free, free Palestine.

Poetry has always served as a mode of resistance in Palestinian culture. In defiance of dispossession and decades of military siege, of a nakba that never ended, historical and cultural obfuscation, and unrelenting violence, the "power to narrate," as Edward Said wrote, remains a necessary tool for self-determination.

The poems collected here reclaim that power, bridging borders, languages, and generations to forge new conversations around resistance and liberation.

HEAVEN LOOKS LIKE US is a battle-cry against the annihilation of a people. As Palestinian history remains haunted by exile, violence, and grief, so are the poems in this anthology. The editors present these realities alongside other themes that are also true: queer and feminist perspectives, eco-poetry, meditations on love and time, and lineages of protest.

This anthology dares to imagine a future beyond a nation-state for Palestinian people everywhere. Contributors include Refaat Alareer, Mahmoud Darwish, Naomi Shihab Nye, Mohammed El-Kurd, A.D. Lauren-Abunassar, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Hala Alyan, Fady Joudah, and Heba Abu Nada, along with many other established and ascending voices.