Aid to Gaza via poetry prints
From "Variations on a Last Chance," Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
//
CEASEFIRE NOW
Expedition Press stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people and we are dismayed more each day at our country's role in the current genocide. We feel complicit and we feel despair. Can poetry do something?
For the month of December 2023, Expedition Press will donate 50% of sales from prints by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Zeina Hashem Beck, and Mosab Abu Toha to Emergency Aid: Gaza Under Attack, a joint campaign of the Palestinian Feminist Collective x Middle East Children's Alliance. We also encourage direct donations. It always feels strange to be in the middle with benefits like this but it's an action toward focusing energy and also, we know our broadsides can put life-altering, mind-changing, heart-wrenching poetry in front of people who might otherwise never see it.
Maybe you know someone who needs to see this issue from another point of view? You could gift them one of these prints and even better, include the book it's from.
Learn more about the Palestinian Feminist Collective and download their All Out for Palestine Digital Action Toolkit. Lena suggested this organization and I (Myrna, artist and owner of Expedition) am learning a lot from them. I also recommend following these poets on social media as they are all actively speaking out from their unique perspectives and what they have to say matters. I follow all three on instagram: Lena, Zeina, Mosab. Further, here are links to their books. Get to know their work!
- Mosab Abu Toha: Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear (City Lights).
- Zeina Hashem Beck: O (Penguin), Louder than Hearts (Bauhan), There Was and How Much Was There (Smith|Doorstop), 3arabi Song, To Live in Autumn (The Backwaters Press).
- Lena Khalaf Tuffaha: Something About Living (forthcoming Akron Press 2024), Kaan and Her Sisters (Trio House Press), Water & Salt (Red Hen Press), Arab in Newsland (Two Sylvias Press).
//
Featured prints
Further listening
We host an informal poetry reading series on Instagram twice a year called Poetry Lunch. There are two episodes with poems by Mosab, one from last spring and one this fall. We also read a poem from Zeina's new book recently.
Logistics
Total sales of these prints for the month of December will be tallied in early January and 50% will donated at that time. If the emergency campaign is closed (hard to imagine given the current state of catastrophe) we'll donate directly to the Palestinian Feminist Collective's general fund. Join our mailing list for a report on the outcome.
Credits
All text on the broadsides featured here was printed with permission from the authors and/or publishers. Find credit info for each print on their individual pages.
Gratitude to Lena and Zeina for their brilliant work, for saying yes to this fundraiser, and for suggesting where to direct donations.
Thanks to Mosab for his harsh reports of the heart from the ground in Gaza and now outside, watching his people die.
Thanks to Elaine Katzenberger of City Lights, who published Mosab's book and put it in my hands in the first place.
