What the World’s Silence Says: A Reading With Gazan Poet Yahya Ashour

Yahya Ashour, an incoming visiting assistant professor of English and world literature, shared his poetry about Gaza during a recent reading at Pitzer College.

Yahya Ashour stands on the Benson Auditorium stage while wearing a shirt with a black and white keffiyeh pattern.

Exiled Gazan poet Yahya Ashour almost doesn’t recognize himself in his poetry from a few years ago. His voice and style are continuously changing. That’s also true of his readings; he often changes his poetry in real time, skipping lines and entire poems. Most recently he did this during a reading in November at Pitzer College, which is where he will be teaching in the spring. Ashour shifts and molds his writing at every opportunity, seeking to do the impossible task of describing life in Gaza:

No Gazan should be
considered fortunate
until dead,
no Gazan should have 
any other destiny.
This is what 
the world’s silence 
says.

As a 2022 honorary fellow at the University of Iowa, Ashour said that he wrote poetry that was considered dark “even by the standards of people in Gaza.”

“I was always saying back then that life in Gaza during the 17 years of siege was unbearable,” said Ashour. “If it was very unbearable back then, before this genocide even started, you can imagine what kind of life Gazans are living right now.”

Ashour addressed a large audience in the College’s Benson Auditorium, referring to Israel’s land, sea, and air blockade on Gaza that started in 2007 and continues to this day. UNICEF reported in 2022 that 1.3 million out of 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza required food assistance. As of June in that year, UNICEF stated that Israeli authorities approved only 64% of patients’ requests to exit Gaza for specialized treatment by their appointment time. The agency also documented how Israeli authorities severely limited fishing, agriculture, and the passage of goods.

Ashour grew up in Gaza, and he has written extensively about it throughout his career. Most recently he published the e-book A Gaza of Siege & Genocide, whose proceeds go directly to assist Ashour’s 19 family members in escaping the dire situation in Gaza.

“I hope that [my poems] serve as a testimony of what has been happening in Gaza and what has been happening for years,” said Ashour.

Ashour read many different excerpts from A Gaza of Siege & Genocide, including:

O God,  
if the time of  
miracles  
has passed,  
why hasn’t  
the time of  
massacres?

 

Professor Brent Armendinger and Ashour sit in orange chairs onstage during a Q & A in Benson Auditorium.
Professor Brent Armendinger and Visiting Professor Yahya Ashour

Professor of English, World Literature, and Creative Writing Brent Armendinger introduced Ashour as a visiting professor who is joining Pitzer’s English and world literature field group this spring. Following Ashour’s reading, Armendinger facilitated a Q & A with the audience. Ashour and Armendinger highlighted poetry’s essential role in telling the stories of Palestinians in Gaza.

“How could anyone survive this siege without poetry?” said Ashour. “I wasn’t alone in that feeling. Many people around me were obsessed with poetry.”

Ashour worked as a creative writing mentor for youth in Gaza, passing on what he learned as a child about literature and poetry from cultural organizations. Ashour plans to continue this work when he teaches two creative writing courses at Pitzer this spring: Poetic Arts and Finding Gaza.

According to Ashour’s course description, Finding Gaza draws inspiration from the arts, culture, and history of the Gaza Strip while focusing on the ongoing siege and genocide. Students will explore how to transform news content, historical narratives, and the resilience of Gaza’s people into poems. Meanwhile, the Poetic Arts class incorporates world culture and visual and performing arts with poetry.

Teaching at Pitzer is not the only way Ashour plans to share the creative voices of Gaza. Ashour will be a guest editor for the literary and art journal Mizna for a special issue featuring Gazan writers and artists, which he hopes will be released by the summer.

During the Q & A, Ashour was asked about translations of his works. Ashour’s poetry has been translated into several languages, including Spanish, French, Japanese, and Bengali. He translates his own work between Arabic and English, although he was not always comfortable with this idea.

“It felt very bad to face yourself twice in two very different languages,” said Ashour.

He had this mindset until someone translated some of his poems into English and they no longer felt like his voice. Once he decided to translate for himself, he discovered he enjoyed it.

“I understand my poetry more,” said Ashour. “I can see my poetry through other lenses that I cannot see when I’m writing it in one language. Translating became an extra editing skill for me.”

Ashour discussed influences on his poetry, from the Quran to Palestinian oral history, folktales, and proverbs. He also noted how the siege of Gaza is not just about restrictions on economics or moving from one place to another; it is also a cultural and academic siege. Ashour said he supports boycotting Israeli academic institutions because they perpetuate this kind of siege.

One of the last poems that Ashour chose for the reading asks readers:

Which life is it  
that the world wishes  
to live  
without Gaza pricking  
its conscience  
every day,  
without Gaza raiding  
its nightmares  
every night?

When asked about Palestinian futurism, Ashour said: “One thing to know about living under siege and witnessing so many assaults and wars is that when you leave this environment, you are still stuck with the trauma. … I cannot see beyond that, cannot imagine the future of a free Palestine. I know and I hope that someday it would happen, but what that would look like is hard for me to say. We can’t always talk about the future … without the past and present also.”

Pitzer College’s Office of the Dean of Faculty and Melvin L. Oliver Racial Justice Initiative provided support for Ashour’s reading event. Ashour’s visit to campus was also made possible by many of Pitzer’s faculty members as well as Student Affairs, Facilities, Human Resources, Mail Center, and Office of the Dean of Faculty.

Ashour’s residency is part of a College initiative to welcome Palestinian faculty to teach courses at Pitzer. Jamal Al-Shareef, a sociolinguist from Gaza, is also set to teach classes in the spring as a visiting professor.

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Bridgette Ramirez

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