Poetry Book Club: Forest of Noise

By Loes Gerrits and Sarah van der Meijs

Dear HHP members,

We, HHP-students Loes and Sarah, would like to share our experience from our poetry book club meeting. On the fourth of June, we gathered with six students from the honours community to discuss Mosab Abu Toha’s newest poetry collection Forest of Noise. A haunting and beautiful work on the author’s experience as a Palestinian in war-occupied Gaza. Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian author who won the 2025 Pulitzer prize for his essays on the war. Forest of Noise is his second poetry collection, preceded by Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza. Toha is also the founder of the Edward Said library in Gaza and is very active on social media.

When we asked why people had decided to join our book club, we got a range of answers. Some joined because of their love for poetry or book clubs, while others were motivated by a desire to read more about the war in Gaza. Our conversation moved between poetic form and layout, and themes of empathy, guilt and activism. We concluded that the poems are quite accessible, even if you are not into poetry, you can read the prose-style of this collection. The content however, is gut-wrenching. The descriptions of the consequences of war on daily life are truly horrifying. Even though we were all aware of the events in Gaza, this personal witness account told through poetry definitely made an impact.

The shared experience of reading the collection and our proceeding discussion gave us more tools to approach this collection. We were able to recommend each other different works, like Toha’s interviews and previous poetry collection which includes photography. There is also an audiobook version of Forest of Noise, read by Toha himself. With its accessible poetic language, Forest of Noise can share its important story with a large audience. We would therefore recommend everyone to read Forest of Noise, but above all to share their experience and reflections with others.