Before the Next Bomb Drops: Rising Up from Brooklyn to Palestine

By Remi Kanazi

"A beautiful but urgent clarion call for freedom, justice, and resistance in every pocket of the world, from occupied Palestine to gentrified Brooklyn" (Marc Lamont Hill, academic and activist).

 

we are the boat / returning to dock / we are the footprints / on the northern trail / we are the iron / coloring the soil / we cannot / be erased

—from "Refugee"


 


Remi Kanazi's poetry presents an unflinching look at the lives of Palestinians under occupation and as refugees scattered across the globe. He captures the Palestinian people's stubborn refusal to be erased, gives voice to the ongoing struggle for liberation, and explores the meaning of international solidarity.


 


In this latest collection, Kanazi expands his focus outside the sphere of Palestine and presents pieces examining racism in America, police brutality, US militarism at home and wars abroad, conflict voyeurism, Islamophobia, and a range of other issues.


 


"His rhymes and rhythms, filled with sharp wit, irony and deep empathy, are a great joy to read even as they tackle some of the most urgent political struggles of our day." —Ali Abunimah, author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781608465255

Book preview

© 2015 Remi Kanazi

Haymarket Books

P.O. Box 180165

Chicago, IL 60618

773-583-7884

[e-mail]

www.haymarketbooks.org

ISBN: 978-160846-524-8

Trade distribution:

In the US, Consortium Book Sales and Distribution, www.cbsd.com

In the UK, Turnaround Publisher Services, www.turnaround-uk.com

In Canada, Publishers Group Canada, www.pgcbooks.ca

All other countries, Publishers Group Worldwide, www.pgw.com

Discounts on bulk purchases are available for organizations, teachers, activists, and others. Please contact Haymarket Books for more information.

This book was published with the generous support of Lannan Foundation and the Wallace Action Fund.

Cover design by Eric Ruder.

Library of Congress CIP data is available.

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Praise for Before the Next Bomb Drops

"Remi Kanazi is one of the most courageous voices of this generation. Before the Next Bomb Drops is a beautiful but urgent clarion call for freedom, justice, and resistance in every pocket of the world, from occupied Palestine to gentrified Brooklyn. Read this book and prepare to be inspired, enlightened, and emboldened."

—Marc Lamont Hill, CNN commentator

and host of HuffPost Live and BET News

"Here is how I consumed Before the Next Bomb Drops: I’d read a page, then put it down, walk around the room for thirty seconds, then another page followed by another mental health break, and then I’d repeat this ritual. This book of poetry was devastating to pick up and impossible to put down. Remi Kanazi has graced us with poems that are an antidote to cynicism and a searing call of urgency for the human rights struggle of our times. If you are immersed in the struggle for Palestinian lives, your collection of literature is incomplete without this. But if you love poetry and know nothing of the Middle East, I also could not recommend a better book. Remi Kanazi has raised the bar for how art and politics can serve one another for the greater good."

—Dave Zirin, the Nation

This is by far Remi Kanazi’s best and most mature work. It is also his funniest, saddest, and most uplifting. His poems evoke places from Brooklyn to Gaza, and he travels in time from 1948 to a present sometimes experienced through images on a smartphone flitting past desensitized eyes. Writing the lyrics of a movement, Kanazi aims upwards at the powerful and inwards, challenging our own complacency. His rhymes and rhythms, filled with sharp wit, irony, and deep empathy, are a great joy to read even as they tackle some of the most urgent political struggles of our day.

—Ali Abunimah, cofounder of Electronic Intifada

and author of the Battle for Justice in Palestine

"Remi’s verse is a series of indignant letters to the passersby of our historical moment who thought they were minding their own business but who, in fact, are perpetuating the problem with their privileged complicity. Each verse made me sink deeper into my chair and helped unleash a cascade of relieving tears: in

Reviews for Before the Next Bomb Drops

[tlcooper_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Before the Next Bomb Drops: Rising Up from Brooklyn to Palestine by Remi Kanazi challenges preconceptions and misconceptions by drawing parallels that are sometimes a bit uncomfortable but immersive and realistic. Kanazi writes poetry that is incredibly beautiful, intensely blunt, and sometimes satisfyingly sarcastic often bringing one to an unexpected realization through the reading. Before the Next Bomb Drops feels current and historical at the same time in its examination of dynamics between peoples, governments, and societies.

[bibliosk8er_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Damn, this is really good and intense. Obviously it has a lot to say about the Palestinian/Israeli sitution/conflict/etc., but it has a lot to say about place like Ferguson, and issues like Stop And Frisk. I happened up Remi when I discovered Haymarket Books, and saw a video of him reciting one of these poems and it was powerful. I got no answers to the problems in Palestine - too ignorant to really comment with any intelligence - but man people all over sure have the capacity for too-simple answers and injustice, as well as good.