Mohammed Moussa

I write poetry because I love poetry and I developed my love and my passion for poetry from a very young age.

And when I go back to this, maybe I would say being Palestinian infused that love,

For poetry, because poetry is wherever you go as a Palestinian, in schools, in funerals, in weddings.

and you develop that passion to read and write poetry from a very young age.

But the act of writing and the act of loving or hating poetry is something personal, like being a poet is something personal.

But sharing

poem as a Palestinian is a political act like I love poetry and I always say poetry is a conversation with the self like I'm trying to listen to that voice inside of me and talk to that voice and what it is what this voice is trying to tell me and what I am trying to tell that voice and try to write this down and it turns out to be poetic

But this is an interesting journey of being a poet in itself.

But being a Palestinian poet is something I cannot disconnect myself from, because I have to talk to the world as a poet.

But if I write a love poem, it would sound political as a Palestinian.

that's why sometimes you write the poem and after that you find that the poem went to a whole different dimension that you could not you cannot control the journey of the poem itself and yeah

it's interesting journey for the poem from being with you and from being in solitude to being with multitude, you know, but as a Palestinian poet, you know, there were many times I was in Gaza never seen the whole world outside and my poems could be read in

here in Scotland, you know, in London, but me personally not allowed to cross the border, to cross, you know, the Rafah crossing and travel to the world and see the world.

So it is interesting being a poet from Palestine and especially from Gaza, but I always feel like the journey of the poem is very different from my journey as a poet.

Yes.

True.

There were times, you know, before the genocide, you know, during this was because it's not the only war that I lived or experienced or any Gaza lived or experienced.

there were so many words we lived and experienced and we used to write about a love poem and in my previously published collections you will find a lot of love poems but

There were so many times that people would listen to me read a love poem and to them this felt political, like I am talking about Casa as a lady, while I'm talking about a lover.

It does, but love exists.