In anticipation of our upcoming reading and conversation, we’re thrilled to present two new poems by George Abraham on Palestinian resistance, queer rage, and writing through the wreckage of US empire: “Poems,” they conclude, “useless as Americans.”

In austere, fragmented lines, Sara Abou Rashed’s poem “It Comes Down to This” memorializes Shireen Abu Akleh and the hundreds of Palestinian journalists murdered by the Israeli state.

In “DOME EACH IRIS,” poet Jess Liu creates a sonic landscape that dramatizes capital’s plasticization of everyday life.

In “red script of questions,” poet Ali Choudhary creates a harrowing dialogue with the children of Gaza as they continue to endure Israel’s genocide.

In “Live Action Role Play,” poet Christopher Blackman considers the linkages among LARPing, imperial decay, and the splendor of a full moon.

Poet Ahmad Ibsais’s “Threadbare in Rafah” narrates the steadfastness of Palestinian children against the unimaginable terrors of Israel’s genocide.

Poet Chris Campanioni’s “we never hear about the fathers of birds” explores the contradictory ways the self is formed, concluding that “the rich // confusion between a thing & / I arrives always / through violence.”

Poet Justin Aoba’s “Central Administration Integrates a Dependent Territory” moves through the brutalities of state-formation and collapse, illuminating “fissures / read by the scraping of tremulous finger, / dry lips.”

Part of a series of archival ekphrasis, Eric Abalajon’s “filipino laborers working as the boss looks on” interprets the visual remnants of class struggle from economic periphery to imperial core.

In dialogue with the Qur’an, Ayesha Siddiqi’s poem “Sand” animates the inanimate, exploring what toils “in the machinery of the world.”