Reading & Talks Featuring Mosab Abu Toha
Posted in Announcements
January 26, 2026 at 7:00PM ET
Location: Copley Formal Lounge
Join us for a reading and conversation with Mosab Abu Toha, a poet, short story writer, and essayist from Gaza. Abu Toha is the author of Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza, winner of the 2022 Palestine Book Award.
Accommodation requests related to a disability should be made by January 19th to Patricia Guzman, 202-687-6294, pg654@georgetown.edu. A good faith effort will be made to fulfill requests made after January 19th.
Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear
–Mosab Abu Toha
For Alicia M. Quesnel, MD
i
When you open my ear, touch it
gently.
My mother’s voice lingers somewhere inside.
Her voice is the echo that helps recover my equilibrium
when I feel dizzy during my attentiveness.
You may encounter songs in Arabic,
poems in English I recite to myself,
or a song I chant to the chirping birds in our backyard.
When you stitch the cut, don’t forget to put all these back in my ear.
Put them back in order as you would do with books on your shelf.
ii
The drone’s buzzing sound,
the roar of an F-16,
the screams of bombs falling on houses,
on fields, and on bodies,
of rockets flying away—
rid my small ear canal of them all.
Spray the perfume of your smiles on the incision.
Inject the song of life into my veins to wake me up.
Gently beat the drum so my mind may dance with yours,
my doctor, day and night.
–