On October 13, 2024 we began Poetry of the Camps with students from Gaza with the help of the team at We Are Not Numbers, our local partner in Gaza. Some students joined us from refugee camps across Gaza itself, others joined us from Cairo, Egypt. All this as the fires raged senselessly across the north of Gaza due to air strikes.

Summer 2025. Amidst famine and displacement, our second cohort of students joined our program to write poetry. They requested us to continue our sessions, and we are.

One of our students from Gaza said she had never written a poem before. She then shared a searing poem that she wrote during our first session. “So is this considered poetry?” she asked. She is a poet unlike any we have encountered before.

These are the words and voices of the poets of Gaza.