Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear

Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet from Gaza. This piece sets six poems from his book Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear (City Lights, 2022). A narrator speaks every poem complete, as written. The piano does not accompany the words.

The piano is the inside of the ear. It keeps two kinds of sound. Home sounds are made with the fingers and with bowed threads: plucked high strings, a bowed voice, a muted song. Foreign sounds are made with objects placed inside the instrument: a chain, a strip of paper, a rubber ball. In the title poem the speaker asks the doctor to remove the sounds of war from his ear; the pianist does the same, playing each foreign sound once and taking its object out. When the last word has faded, the piece ends with the pedals alone.

For narrator and piano (inside and keys; all objects removable; no electronics). Proportional graphic score. Written for Duo Raconteur. Dedicated to all the innocent people and children who have died in Gaza.

From Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear. Copyright © Mosab Abu Toha, 2022. Reprinted with the permission of City Lights Books. https://citylights.com/general-poetry/things-you-may-find-hidden-in-my-ear/