Our literary magazine was founded on Leonard Cohen’s 89th birth anniversary on September 21, 2023. We are poets obsessed with the ways in which poetry can both break you and build you up. Though we’re based in Canada, we’d like to hope that we can reach across borders and generations (someday!). Welcome to this little corner of the internet where we can sing into the void and remember that poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
POET OF THE WEEK
Basman Aldirawi
NOVEMBER 30, 2025
Basman Aldirawi (also published under Basman Derawi) is a Palestinian physiotherapist, writer and poet from Gaza. He has contributed dozens of stories/poems to the online platform We Are Not Numbers and other platforms including ArabLit, Mondoweiss and Vivamost. He also co-authored Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, 2022 and the Arabic poetry anthology, Gaza, the land of poetry, 2021.
You know I have never seen Gaza from a boat in
the middle of the Mediterranean.
And I am not daring enough to swallow my saliva and
ask you how my house looks from a far.
I can't even ask: Did you see my house?
With the continuity of the genocide, I keep questioning the worthiness of writing. Yet, I think of writing as a duty, a moral responsibility towards my people, my cause. In this genocide, I lost a sister with her family, best friends and colleagues. They deserve for the names and stories to be heard.