Forest of Noise
Mosab Abu Toha

“Powerful, capacious and profound.” Ocean Vuong — Vietnamese American poet, essayist and novelist

The powerful UK debut poetry collection from the award-winning, New Yorker published Palestinian poet, Mosab Abu Toha.

Barely 30 years old, Mosab Abu Toha was already a well-known poet when the current assault on Gaza began. After the Israeli army bombed and destroyed his house, destroying a library he had built for his community use, he and his family fled for their safety. Not for the first time in their lives.

Somehow, amid the chaos, Abu Toha kept writing poems.
These are those poems.

Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, short-story writer and essayist from Gaza. His first collection of poetry, ‘Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear’, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and won the Palestine Book Award, the American Book Award and the Walcott Poetry Prize.

Abu Toha is also the founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, which he hopes to rebuild. He recently won an Overseas Press Club Award for his ‘Letter from Gaza’ columns for The New Yorker.

“Heartbreaking, evocative, transformative poetry of witness … a book you won’t soon forget.” Ilya Kaminsky — poet, critic, translator and professor, best known for his poetry collections ‘Dancing in Odesa’ and ‘Deaf Republic’

“Astonishing.” Terrance Hayes — American poet and educator who has published seven poetry collections

“Each poetic line is, at its heart, a lifeline to survival.” Ada Limón — American poet who was named the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States in 2022