A visual interpretation of 3 Palestinian poems by Dhwani Shah

Yehuda Amichai, Jehan Bseiso, Fady Joudah

I’m sharing with you today 3 poems from Palestine reinterpreted visually by the artist Dhwani Shah. These three images were part of an activity “100 days of chewing the cud: a small attempt to read, reflect and doodle”.

I will be doing a dialogue with Dhwani tomorrow (25th July) at 7 pm.

“The Sound of the Hand Moving Across the Paper”

Catch the conversation live here 7 pm onwards!

or copy paste this url - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTpAsSt9L5yRs-VuzqsWwGw (the video will be live on this page)

One of the poems is excerpted. Here is the complete poem:

Gaza goes back to school
Jehan Bseiso

School is now home and shelter for thousands.
Students are displaced or dead, injured or orphaned.
Teacher throws her body on the children to hide them.
Books are smoke and ashes.
Math is 51 days, 2,200 deas 10,000 injured
Land divided, settlements multiply.
Geography is we make our own map
from the river to the sea.
How do you teach justice in an open-air prison?
Attendance:
Gaza, Khan Younis, Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun
- still standing.
Beit Lahiya, Deir al- Balah, bani Suhalia
-we're alive.
Haifa, Yafa,Hebron, Bethlehem, nablus, Ramallah
-present.
Al Quds- still here.
Poetry is: No poetry in this.
No song under seige, only little shoes under the rubble.
Beit al-Alami, Beit al-Batsh, Dar Abu Ali
- present.
All my sisters are dead.
How do you unlearn loss?
Beit Shaaban, Beit Alhajj, Beit Najjar
-dead or absent.

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