Water to Water

A poetry collaboration in the call-and-response form of Renga by two award-winning poets--one Jewish American and one Palestinian American during the genocide in Gaza. In 2009, prompted by the Israeli siege of Gaza, Palestinian American poet Deema Shehabi and Jewish American poet Marilyn Hacker started a correspondence. It took the form of responding to each other's poems. They resumed their poetic dialogue by email after Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023. Their project involved an alternating call and response between them in the tradition of the Japanese renga form, each poet picking up a word, phrase, or image from the poem preceding. The result is a fascinating poetic conversation. The two poetic voices are beautifully meshed together, so that it actually reads as one long poem. The poetry is rich in vivid imagery, leaving lasting impressions along with the emotions it evokes--such as the feelings unrest and exile. While television and social media present