You Must Live

Offering a portal into the realities of the Palestinian genocide, You Must Live is a bilingual anthology of recent poetry (2023-2024) from Gaza and the West Bank. Edited and translated from Arabic by Tayseer Abu Odeh and Sherah Bloor, You Must Live gathers the voices of poets currently living in Palestinian territory--some of whom have never left. Contributors write in the wake of current atrocities, from precarious situations, and from beyond what is endurable, with their lives at stake. Yet, You Must Live refuses to cast these poets as perpetual victims. Diverse voices and styles shine through--highly inventive, imaginative, knowledgeable, powerful, prayerful, theatrical, and even often humorous. There are love letters to the landscape, elegies for martyrs and homes, a lamentation from the bar, and proclamations for the future. "Is there safe passage? / Those who know these roads carry lanterns-- / our country's addresses are forever." Negotiating the interplay between aesthetics and politics, the individual and the collective, You Must Live is a counter to the widespread dehumanization of Palenstinians, an urgent call to the global community.