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A review by brice_mo
Forest of Noise: Poems by Mosab Abu Toha
4.0
Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC!
Mosab Abu Toha’s Forest of Noise is a blunt collection of documentary poetry that follows the ongoing violence in Gaza from its epicenter.
It’s a complicated project.
Poetry about violence often seems like an exercise in futility because bloodshed makes the world contract; a poem should do the opposite. In other words, it can feel like trying to turn something destructive into something generative, and the result can read as artifice. Thankfully, that isn’t the case here.
Instead, the poet uses the futility of the form to bring readers close to understanding.
Visual documentary tends to focus on loss of life, but Mosab Abu Toha uses poetry to focus on a loss of living. Maybe a better way to say it is that he foregrounds the lives unlived, rather than simply depicting death. For example, we read about cemeteries that have been destroyed, resulting in not only present destruction, but also the erasure of the past and a choking of the future—a kind of death after death. For readers who are unable to consume the barrage of violent photographs or videos online without feeling distanced—a dulling of the senses—Forest of Noise offers a thoughtful alternative.
These poems wearily contort themselves into comprehensible shapes, constrained by the violence surrounding and penetrating them. Almost every line lumbers bluntly into place, which feels like the only way they could possibly exist. They are conscious decisions to reorder the world’s ruptured syntax.
There’s little doubt that this is an excellent collection.
That said, while reading, I personally struggled with the mediation afforded by the poetic form. As these poems pile up, their specificity is slowly replaced with a kind of anonymity. In a way, this could be seen as a testament to the impact of violence—it gradually dehumanizes and detaches—but that seems antithetical to the book's apparent intention to memorialize. I can imagine some readers encountering these as “powerful” poems and immediately moving on with their lives, but perhaps that’s just a challenge implicit in the form.
Regardless, this collection is bitterly needed, and I admire Mosab Abu Toha’s courage and belief that poetry can mean something in the face of genocide.
Mosab Abu Toha’s Forest of Noise is a blunt collection of documentary poetry that follows the ongoing violence in Gaza from its epicenter.
It’s a complicated project.
Poetry about violence often seems like an exercise in futility because bloodshed makes the world contract; a poem should do the opposite. In other words, it can feel like trying to turn something destructive into something generative, and the result can read as artifice. Thankfully, that isn’t the case here.
Instead, the poet uses the futility of the form to bring readers close to understanding.
Visual documentary tends to focus on loss of life, but Mosab Abu Toha uses poetry to focus on a loss of living. Maybe a better way to say it is that he foregrounds the lives unlived, rather than simply depicting death. For example, we read about cemeteries that have been destroyed, resulting in not only present destruction, but also the erasure of the past and a choking of the future—a kind of death after death. For readers who are unable to consume the barrage of violent photographs or videos online without feeling distanced—a dulling of the senses—Forest of Noise offers a thoughtful alternative.
These poems wearily contort themselves into comprehensible shapes, constrained by the violence surrounding and penetrating them. Almost every line lumbers bluntly into place, which feels like the only way they could possibly exist. They are conscious decisions to reorder the world’s ruptured syntax.
There’s little doubt that this is an excellent collection.
That said, while reading, I personally struggled with the mediation afforded by the poetic form. As these poems pile up, their specificity is slowly replaced with a kind of anonymity. In a way, this could be seen as a testament to the impact of violence—it gradually dehumanizes and detaches—but that seems antithetical to the book's apparent intention to memorialize. I can imagine some readers encountering these as “powerful” poems and immediately moving on with their lives, but perhaps that’s just a challenge implicit in the form.
Regardless, this collection is bitterly needed, and I admire Mosab Abu Toha’s courage and belief that poetry can mean something in the face of genocide.