Resources to support Palestine during the ongoing Israeli genocide

Educate

• Let’s Talk Palestine

• Palestinian Youth Movement

• Writers Against the War on Gaza

Act

• Gaza Funds

• Palestinian Resource Guide

• eSims for Gaza

• Boycotts, Divestments, Sanctions (BDS) Movement

A Note on the Poetry Foundation

The Poetry Foundation as an institution has failed the Palestinian people and its commitment to “amplify poetry and celebrate poets by fostering spaces for all” in its overt silence and neutrality surrounding the ongoing Palestinian genocide.

POETRY Magazine is unfortunately bound to the Poetry Foundation. However, the team of individual editors and readers at POETRY is one I have great faith in for how they have demonstrated active solidarity with the Palestinian people. The magazine team, despite our efforts, has been unable to convince the higher-ups at the Foundation to make any more explicit statement of solidarity and call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Still, the team as its own entity is one that I trust, a group of just people trying to do good with their platform while stuck within an abhorrent institution.

I continue to read submissions for POETRY for the express purpose of platforming marginalized voices that might otherwise remain silent should the magazine lose its team of justice-focused readers. The magazine is not going away, and I’d rather take the opportunity I have to push it towards justice than abandon it to fester toward inhumanity. I hope to make it better, not leave it to get worse. Reading for POETRY also allows me to redistribute wealth otherwise hoarded by the foundation; I use the income I make reading for POETRY to donate to Palestinian relief causes, income I would not otherwise have to donate.

I will always be openly critical of the Poetry Foundation in the same way I will be critical of Yale, of Fulbright, and of all institutions who deny the humanity of suffering people and instead seek to their maintain settler-colonial foundations in pursuit of capitalist greed. I am inspired by students at universities like Yale and Columbia who bravely protest their institution from within rather than distancing themselves from the problem.

And I recognize that many may disagree with my reasoning to continue working with POETRY in hopes of improving the organization, that they may consider any perceived alignment with the Foundation to be a moral failing. I understand this. Ultimately, we are seeking the same liberation for our siblings under attack. It is a challenge to navigate our current institutions and try to reorient them towards justice. Please, do reach out if you want to talk more about the Poetry Foundation and working towards a free Palestine; every conversation brings us closer to justice.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.