Presenter: Grace K. Jeronimo

Faculty Sponsor: Raúl D. Gutiérrez

School: Holyoke Community College

Research Area: Literature

Session: Poster Session 5, 3:15 PM - 4:00 PM, Auditorium, A71

ABSTRACT

In today’s modern era, art has been increasingly ridiculed, devalued, and trivialized, through developments like A.I. and the cultural discourse on the commodification of art. This paper will primarily focus on Mosab Abu Toha’s poetry as a fundamental medium of action within the Palestinian cause. About 18 months before Israel commenced their genocidal campaign in Gaza, Mosab Abu Toha, a Palestinian poet and scholar, wrote and published a collection of poems, titled Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear. Within this body of work, he details the horrors and pains of daily life in the Gaza strip, and communicates themes common within Palestinian poetry, such as sumud, the right of return and Palestinian self-determination. These sentiments were inherited by the generations that came after the mass murder and expulsion of Palestinians in 1948. Through lines on the anguishing sound of silence to the harrowing imagery of mass graves, we can observe that Mosab’s writings follow the legacy of Israeli settler-colonialism. This depicts the nature of liberation literature, which goes beyond the traditional study of liberatory struggle by confronting the external struggle through an internal route. Like Paulo Freire, Assata Shakur, Toni Morrison, Mahmoud Darwish and many others, Mosab explores the emotional and spiritual freedom of Palestinians, while archiving historical accounts and celebrating Palestinian resilience.