The third poem in our Gaza Advent series is by Batool Abu Akleen.
This is how I cook my grief, by Batool Abu Akleen, translated by Yasmin Zaher.
Batool Abu Akleen is a Palestinian poet and translator from Gaza City. At the age of fifteen, 2020, she won the Barjeel Poetry Prize for her poem ‘I didn’t steal the cloud,’ which was published in the Beirut-based magazine Rusted Radishes thereafter. Abu Akleen’s poetry has been translated into several languages and featured in numerous international publications, including ArabLit and The Massachusetts Review, amongst others.
She is the author of 48Kg. (Tenement Press, 2025), translated from the Arabic by the poet, with Graham Liddell, Wiam El-Tamami, Cristina Viti & Yasmin Zaher. 48Kg. is a Palestine Festival of Literature ‘Book of the Week’ / A Palestine Festival of Literature ‘Bookshelf’ choice; A New Statesman ‘Book of the Year’ 2025 / ℅ Jacqueline Rose; and was awarded the The Jean-Jacques Rousseau Fellowship / ℅ the Akademie Schloss Solitude.
You can read an interview between Batool Abu Akleen and Claire Armistead on the Guardian website.
I remain indebted to the work of Natalie Jabbar of Live in the Layers, Chris Rose and all the staff of the Amos Trust for inspiring this series of posts.
Photo by Salah Darwish on Unsplash
Lifesaving Poems 