Mohammed Moussa on The Face Before You: 'In my poems, hope will always persist'
Mohammed Moussa believes the fragmented and urgent nature of poetry resonates with meaning more than other forms of writing. He tells Allan Radcliffe that verse is the ideal method to express the horror of Gaza
As titles go, The Face Before You is direct. Confrontational even. The subtitle (To Write Poetry On Genocide) is even less equivocal. Mohammed Moussa, a Palestinian poet born in the Jabalia refugee camp, has been chronicling life in Gaza under Israeli occupation and under siege since well before 2023. But his work as a writer, podcast host and journalist has taken on a renewed sense of urgency since the 7 October attacks by Hamas and the brutal, genocidal war waged by Israel on Gaza’s Palestinian population over the past two years.
In this new collection, across more than 100 poems, Moussa touches on many aspects of life in Gaza, documenting the devastation wrought by displacement and bombardment, often moving in a few lines from large political questions to intimate experience. He has written that at times he feels ‘anger towards language’, and yet, in the face of unimaginable suffering in his homeland, Moussa continues to write. ‘When I refer to anger towards language in the context of genocide, I mean the frustration that arises when one attempts to convey the meaning or articulate the atrocities occurring in one’s city, yet failing to do so,’ he says. ‘Poetry serves as a means of expressing myself to the external world, akin to taking a shortcut, unlike prose. I believe that poetry has the potential to resonate with people more deeply than other forms of writing, perhaps due to its urgency and fragmentation.’
Moussa, who is a founder of the Gaza Poets Society which offers opportunities to emerging voices, acknowledges there have been instances where his poems have travelled, even when he, as a Gazan, could not. ‘I do not write for a particular reader,’ says the now Turkey-based poet. ‘I feel that poetry itself fulfils this role, guiding me to the reader when they find themselves within my words. Thus, I perceive the journey of the poem as more significant than that of the poet.’
While the writing in The Face Before You is disarmingly sharp and unsentimental, it is not devoid of hope and joy, as in the poem ‘The Path Towards Liberty’. Moussa speaks categorically about the need to retain a positive outlook for a better future. ‘In my poems, hope will always persist, serving as a window through which I can view the world beyond, reminding myself, and the reader, that change is possible one day, especially if we take meaningful action to ensure that this occupation comes to an end.’
The Face Before You is published by Leamington Books on Wednesday 25 February.