Join us for a reading of
THINGS YOU MAY FIND HIDDEN IN MY EAR: POEMS FROM GAZA
by Mosab Abu Toha
A Benefit for the Middle East Children’s Alliance
We will be joined by Priscilla Wathington, Nathalie Khankan, Neeli Cherkovski, Ariel Resnikoff, Garrett Caples, Steve Dickison, Evan Kennedy, Andrew Joron, Sophia Dahlin, Lindsey Boldt, mimi tempestt, Tonya Foster, Norma Cole, Trisha Low, Syd Staiti, Kim Shuck, Ava Koohbor, Julien Poirier, Susan Gervitz, Soledad Con Carne, Barbara Jane Reyes, Carlos Quinteros III, Josiah Luis Alderete, Patrick James Dunagan, Agneta Falk Hirschman, and Brian Lucas.
Please join City Lights, the Middle East Children’s Alliance {MECA}, and a star-studded cast of poets—including, via Zoom from Cairo, the author himself—for a group reading of the entirety of Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, the award-winning debut volume by Palestinian poet and founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, Mosab Abu Toha. All proceeds will benefit MECA, which is helping to provide emergency assistance to families displaced by Israel’s ongoing attack on Gaza, as well as procuring emergency medical supplies for hospitals and clinics.
Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, scholar, and librarian who was born in Gaza and has spent his life there. He is the founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s first English-language library. Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear is his debut book of poems. The collection won an American Book Award, a 2022 Palestine Book Award and was named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry, as well as the 2022 Walcott Poetry Prize. In 2019-2020, Abu Toha was a Visiting Poet in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. Abu Toha is a columnist for Arrowsmith Press, and his writings from Gaza have also appeared in The Nation and Literary Hub. His poems have been published in Poetry, The Nation, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Poetry Daily, and the New York Review of Books, among others.
This event is made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation