Beloved Brother, Beloved Sister - Poems for Palestine
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This volume of poems celebrates my friendships with Palestinians (and a few others) from Gaza, Lebanon, and elsewhere. I hope in these poems to speak meaningfully of their beautiful hearts and deep suffering. I mean to speak my gratitude for the love they have shown to me and wisdom they have shared with me.
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Dedication
My gratitude for the inspiration that led to these poems belongs first to Doaa Mohaisen, a student on scholarship from Gaza, Palestine, whom I met one day in early September of 2016. Doaa came into my office at Carroll College, seeking the help of a tutor for Linguistics and Latin.
Over time, we became friends, and I found in Doaa a brilliant mind, a beautiful heart, and a playful spirit. My wife Linda and I took her on road trips and hikes here in Montana, where the sparse population and enormous expanses of nearly empty land contrasted sharply with the desperately crowded and constrained Gaza Strip. Nonetheless, I told Doaa, “I love this irony, that while I live in a huge, wide-open space in a wealthy country and you in such a small, cramped, and impoverished place, you have made my world so much larger and my heart so much richer.” To all of my Palestinian friends, and to others whom I have come to know along the way, I say the same.
Most of the friends named in this book are Palestinian and live in Gaza or have recently moved from Gaza to other countries (Qatar, UAE, Canada, Belgium, Turkey, Australia). A few friends named herein are not Palestinian, but Syrian, Jordanian, Israeli, and American. They have expressed a deep sympathy for the Palestinian struggle for freedom, civil rights, and dignity.
I owe a forever debt of gratitude to friends in We Are Not Numbers, a Gazan organization mentoring young Palestinian writers in English and telling their stories to a Western audience. Many others in Gaza have blessed me with their friendship.
I cannot, nor will I ever, find words numerous enough or beautiful enough to say what beauty and joy these friends have brought to me. They are among the kindest, gentlest, and most uplifting people I have ever known. “Your existence is beautiful; you are a beautiful gift from Allah,” I tell them. I write these poems for them, merely to say, “Thank you. I love you.”
-Kevin Hadduck
My gratitude for the inspiration that led to these poems belongs first to Doaa Mohaisen, a student on scholarship from Gaza, Palestine, whom I met one day in early September of 2016. Doaa came into my office at Carroll College, seeking the help of a tutor for Linguistics and Latin.
Over time, we became friends, and I found in Doaa a brilliant mind, a beautiful heart, and a playful spirit. My wife Linda and I took her on road trips and hikes here in Montana, where the sparse population and enormous expanses of nearly empty land contrasted sharply with the desperately crowded and constrained Gaza Strip. Nonetheless, I told Doaa, “I love this irony, that while I live in a huge, wide-open space in a wealthy country and you in such a small, cramped, and impoverished place, you have made my world so much larger and my heart so much richer.” To all of my Palestinian friends, and to others whom I have come to know along the way, I say the same.
Most of the friends named in this book are Palestinian and live in Gaza or have recently moved from Gaza to other countries (Qatar, UAE, Canada, Belgium, Turkey, Australia). A few friends named herein are not Palestinian, but Syrian, Jordanian, Israeli, and American. They have expressed a deep sympathy for the Palestinian struggle for freedom, civil rights, and dignity.
I owe a forever debt of gratitude to friends in We Are Not Numbers, a Gazan organization mentoring young Palestinian writers in English and telling their stories to a Western audience. Many others in Gaza have blessed me with their friendship.
I cannot, nor will I ever, find words numerous enough or beautiful enough to say what beauty and joy these friends have brought to me. They are among the kindest, gentlest, and most uplifting people I have ever known. “Your existence is beautiful; you are a beautiful gift from Allah,” I tell them. I write these poems for them, merely to say, “Thank you. I love you.”
-Kevin Hadduck