FOMITE
From societies living together yet drowning in hatred and despair emerge two souls who see the truth in the wisdom of their prophets: “Feed the hungry and greet with words of peace those you know and those you do not know” and “the work of righteousness shall be peace”. Basman Derawi (Gaza/Egypt) and Michal Rubin (Israel/US) write for a true “Never again” “Not in my name”, for a child not to have “Genocide” in his/her dictionary, for living colonization free, occupation free, for no more selective humanity, for justice which is the only road to real peace.
This is a book of searching and finding, through fear and pain, their shared humanity, love of the land, and its people, and decide, in their unique way through poetry, to co-create the yet unfertilized seed of a new reality.
As Rubin writes:
When I hear you say
“I am from Gaza”
I think I must paint the screams I don’t hear
and that there isn’t enough love
nor enough red paint
and what color to use
for the silence
between cries
And Derawi responds:
When I hear you say,
“I am from Israel”
and you unzip your chest,
handing me your heart.
Same hearts, same humanity.
I breathe again, I almost cry.
The poems in this collection are a precious example of a careful and thoughtful paradigm shift, creating a path to a world of justice, trust, caring, love, and safety between “enemies”.
About the Authors
Basman Aldirawi (also published as Basman Derawi) is a Palestinian writer and poet. He used to live in Gaza (Basman was in Egypt for advanced Musculoskeletal physiotherapy training course when October 7th events took place and kind of stuck there and he is staying in Egypt now). He works as a physiotherapist in the Ministry of Health in Gaza. In 2018, he joined the Gaza Poets Society, the first spoken word community in Gaza Strip. He has contributed dozens of stories and poems to many online platforms (We are not numbers, Gaza poet society, Vivamost, Mondoweiss and ArabLit). He is a contributing author in We Are Not Numbers, published in Germany in 2019. On behalf of that book, Basman took part in a promotional tour throughout Germany and Switzerland in the same year. He also contributed to an Arabic poetry anthology, Gaza: Land of Poetry, in 2021, and the English anthology, Light in Gaza: Writing Born in Fire, published in 2022.
Michal Rubin was born and raised in Israel and has been living in Columbia, SC for the past 34 years. She is a Psychotherapist, a Cantor and a poet. In her writing she wrestles with the moral dilemmas of the Israeli occupation, and of the continuous war in Gaza, and its devastating impact. She lives with the complexity of having grandparents who were murdered in the Holocaust, and being a member of a nation that continues the oppression and killing of the other. In her most recent work she engages with Palestinian poetry and Palestinian poets, her way of joining the struggle to stop the war, and work towards reaching a just peace. Her poetry was published in numerous journals, and she is the author of a chapbook, Home Visit (Cathexis Northwest Press), and two manuscripts, there are days that I am dead (Fomite Press) and And the bones stay dry (Muddy Ford Press).
