Variant Connections: Art and Words on Gaza
Barbara Lock
Dear Variant Lit readers,
Most of you are artists, poets, or prose writers. Your thoughts, words, and art are as powerful as any force in the universe. How, you might ask, can words be more powerful than bombs?
In his exceptional speech, “How to Build a Universe that Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later,”speculative fiction author Philip K. Dick explains reality:
The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.
At Variant Lit, we believe in the art of words, and the freedom to use them. Below you will find a curated list of art and words on and from Gaza, published elsewhere.
I wish you a very Variant new year.
In artistic communion,
Barbara Lock
Managing Editor
Variant Literature Journal
Revision by Hala Alyan in Guernica.
Languaging Memory by Leena Aboutaleb in poetry.onl.
Gazan Family Letters, 2092, by Mosab Abu Toha in The Nation,
The painting GAZA PEACE by Heba Zagout, (died with her family on October 13).
If I Must Die, by Refaat Alareer.
The front page of Iranian newspaper Watan Amroz, November 7.
Brian Cox’s reading of Refaat’s poem.
A New Yorker Radio Hour interview with Mosab Abu Toha, December 15.
Comparison Is the Way We Know the World by Masha Gessen, in n+1 (a discussion about using the word ghetto to describe Gaza).
Photographs by Mahmoud Qaddoha of Gazans queuing for food.
A surreal, compressed video by Mahmoud Qaddoha of the moments after a missile strike (brief bodily injury identifiable).
A video of the fully destroyed, flattened, deserted former neighborhood of Al-Shujayia.
A video of Gazan adults reading, juggling, and playing music to displaced children.
A poem by Mosab Abu Toha posted on X (Twitter) on December 23.
A video of children scraping spilled flour off of the road, posted by Middle East Eye.
A Christmas message on the theology of empire from Munther Isaac, Pastor in Bethlehem.
A video of evacuating internally displaced refugees by Motaz Azaiza.
A protest in Grand Central Terminal, New York, “Let Gaza Live,” on December 27, 2023.
A photograph of the inside of a refugee tent posted by Quds News Network
The Speech of Ambassador Majed Bamya to the UN Security Council on December 29, 2023
Barbara Lock, managing editor at Variant Lit, wants you to remember that your attention is your most valuable resource, and that words are a form of magic; use your power for good. There’s more about her at barbaralock.com.
© Variant Literature Inc 2023