Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry is available for preorder!

Four or so years ago, I saw a call for submissions for an anthology of Palestinian poetry. All I knew was it was being published by Haymarket Books (a publisher I love) and that two of my favorite contemporary Palestinian poets, George Abraham and Noor Hindi, were editing it. That’s all I needed to know.

At the time I saw that call, my poems were only just starting to get good. They’d only been halfway decent for a split second. I was still writing creative nonfiction 95% of the time. But something told me to go for it and I’m so glad I did, especially now that these handful of years later I’m primarily a poet.

It means even more to me that this anthology, Heaven Looks Like Us, is being published now. At the time the anthology was conceived, we couldn’t have known the genocide that began in 1948 would ramp up so horrifically in October 2023. Palestinian words have always mattered, but this most violent wave of the genocide has given our words an immense urgency and considerably more interest from the general public.

There’s a wide variety of voices represented in the anthology, as well as poetic tones. There are, of course, serious poems about genocide, grief, and loss, but there are also joyful, playful, and funny poems too. (Mine is actually one of the funny ones!) I hope you’ll love and support me and my people at every stop in the spectrum of human emotion.

Preorders make a HUGE difference in the shelf life (pun intended) of a book, so if you can spare a few dollars, please preorder Heaven Looks Like Us.