POEMS -PALESTINIANS- POETS : PAINS REVIEW

PALESTINIAN poets write war's rawest portraits. Two new collections gather unvarnished views of loss, violence and displacement.

Now in Syracuse, N.Y. Abu Toha follows the war from afar. '' I personally lost about 31 members of my extended family, '' he said. He continued, '' The rubble of my house, the rubble of the school where I used to teach, is on my shoulder.''

When that weight becomes too heavy, Abu Toha pours it into a poem.

Several of those poems have become '' FOREST OF NOISE, '' his most recent collection, published last month. Along with '' NO WILL KNOW YOU TOMORROW,'' by another Palestinian poet, Najwan Darwish, which came out on Nov. 26, it provides readers with an unvarnished view of war and its repercussions : fear, dread, devastation and exile.

In '' Thanks [ on the Eve of My Twenty-Second Birthday ], Abu Toha describes a family fleeing their home during an airstrike : '' Mother forgot the cake in the oven, the bomb smoke mixed with the burnt chocolate and strawberry. ''

In '' The Last Kiss, '' he shows a soldier leaving for battle - the sandwich in his backpack, the smudge of his wife's lipstick on his ear, the list of baby names they brainstormed together.

'' For me, the story of the loss is important, '' Abu Toha said. '' But equally important is what was happening before everything was lost.''

The signposts of normal life are there, obscured by ash.

Since its publication, the book has sold 32,500 copies - a significant number especially for a poetry collection, Abu Toha believes his poems paint a clearer picture than a news story because they include feelings - and, he said, '' because I am not a camera.''

The World Students Society thanks Elisabeth Egan.