Asmaa Al-Banna, Gaza

Asmaa Al-Banna is Illuminated Cities’ inaugural 2024 Poetry of the Camps-Gaza Fellow.

Asmaa is a writer from Gaza who graduated in 2021 from the Islamic University of Gaza, Faculty of Education, majoring in basic education.

In her words: “I was displaced three times. Poetry was a means of survival under the pressure of war, to express the pain inside me and wait for the war to stop. I began to employ symbols and metaphors in my poems to express what I live honestly and my fears and suffering.

I write so that the pain is not forgotten, and I listen to the voice of silence when words fail.”

Session One: Miracle Poems

Asmaa - Miracle Poem

Like a butterfly flying, escaping the shadows of death

Towards the suns of freedom

Spider webs surround me

So I ascend with my delicate wings

To my last breath

Trying to reach

The light at the end of the tunnel

I am Asmaa, the miracle of the sky

A miracle for me and my people

And my city that captures my soul

Every day with its misfortune

I am a miracle.

Session Two: Colorism

I saw a colorful world

A more beautiful world

In it is black and white

Red and yellow and brown

Another world

Luxurious

Everyone holds each other's hand

No difference between a white angel

Or a black angel

Or what's in between

The beauty of character brought their hearts together

Nothing prevails except what they have

I saw a blooming world

A world with all colors

No one dominates another

All are equal

They share

The same land

The same bright sun

The round moon

The blood in the veins

The heartbeats

The pains and aches

Nothing separates them

No color or race

Like one body

Session Three: Homeland

Homeland

My homeland was never like other homelands

One day

It was a rebel

Dreamer

But it was never

A safe haven for me

It was hungry

Homeless

A land for tents

I am in it like a bird that did not find

A hug to build a nest

The land of my country

Fertile

Drenched in blood

Martyr after martyr is thrown upon it

Mothers are widows

Fathers are crying

Families from the records

Deleted

Children are torn apart

Shrouds are hanging

Fragments of bodies

People are burned

Corpses mixed with other corpses

Gathered with a piece of cloth

Its name or identity is unknown

How can I see my homeland

Full of love

How are homelands built

How can my homeland live

Without bloodshed

Without a racist wall

And barbed wire barriers

I want to walk it

In one piece

From the river to the sea

Session Four: Love Letters to Palestine

Love Letter to Palestine

Dear homeland

I speak to you from the spirit of my displacement, about my longing for every corner of the city I love, and my many attempts to return after the occupation prevented it, the obstacles it placed, and the threats of no return.

Isn't it unfair that I live in a country other than your embrace?

However, my faith and the hope that you planted in me since childhood remain as long as olives and thyme remain.

I have repeatedly tried to rearrange my papers to comprehend the woes of war that accompany you, my homeland, and I could not. My only consolation is that the things that are happening now are not by my will, and my options have become limited like any other person who will meet his death in this war, but your love for my homeland is engraved and will remain immortal.