Before the Next Bomb Drops

Rising Up from Brooklyn to Palestine

Remi Kanazi

• Publisher: Haymarket Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781608465248
• eBook ISBN:
  9781608465255
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Poetry
• Index: Literature

"A beautiful but urgent clarion call for freedom, justice, and resistance in every pocket of the world, from occupied Palestine to gentrified Brooklyn" (Marc Lamont Hill, academic and activist). we are the boat / returning to dock / we are the footprints / on the northern trail / we are the iron / coloring the soil / we cannot / be erased
—from "Refugee" Remi Kanazi's poetry presents an unflinching look at the lives of Palestinians under occupation and as refugees scattered across the globe. He captures the Palestinian people's stubborn refusal to be erased, gives voice to the ongoing struggle for liberation, and explores the meaning of international solidarity. In this latest collection, Kanazi expands his focus outside the sphere of Palestine and presents pieces examining racism in America, police brutality, US militarism at home and wars abroad, conflict voyeurism, Islamophobia, and a range of other issues. "His rhymes and rhythms, filled with sharp wit, irony and deep empathy, are a great joy to read even as they tackle some of the most urgent political struggles of our day." —Ali Abunimah, author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine

Normalize This!

Nor·mal·i·za·tion applies to relationships that convey

a misleading or deceptive image of normalcy, symmetry

or parity, despite a patently abnormal and asymmetric

relationship of colonial oppression and apartheid.

—Palestinian Campaign for the Academic

and Cultural Boycott of Israel

nothing

is normal

about occupation

nothing normal about

apartheid, ethnic cleansing

siege, blockade, Israeli-only roads

the bombing of water wells, schools

mosques, and UN buildings

nothing normal

about putting a civilian

population on a diet

paying nonindigenous

colonizers

to occupy land

that is already inhabited

rewriting the Nakba

with each stolen childhood

trying to desensitize the bullet holes

and claw marks put into the bodies

of Bassem Abu Rahme and Rachel Corrie

no

I don’t want to normalize with you

I don’t want to hug, have coffee

talk it out, break bread

sit around the campfire

eat s’mores and gush about

how we’re all the same

I don’t want to share the stage

cowrite a poem

submit to your antholo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Acknowledgments
• Nakba
• Lit Up
• Out of Season
• Until It Isn’t
• Nothing to Worry About
• An Empty Vessel
• This Poem Will Not End Apartheid
• A Distraction
• #NoLessWorthy
• Dislocation
• Hebron
• Normalize This!
• Anything But Iraq
• Tree-Lined Empire
• An Open Letter to Campus Zionist Groups and University Chancellors
• This Divestment Bill Hurts My Feelings
• #WhatRemains
• Solidarity
• Appetite for Appropriation
• Refugee
• Refuse
• Sumoud
• Say Their Names
• #InsideOut
• Mourning in Cairo
• Goldstone
• Tone It Down
• Peace Process
• The Grin behind the Tears
• Bobby
• A Closing Bow
• Layover in Palestine
• Credits