Okay I won’t use the word JewishAnd I won’t use the word ZionistAnd I won’t use the word genocideAnd I won’t use the word apartheidAnd I won’t use the word settlerAnd I won’t use the word colonyAnd I won’t use the word killedAnd I won’t use the word watermelonAnd I won’t use the word PalestineAnd I won’t use the word resistanceAnd I won’t use the word lawAnd I won’t use the word moralAnd I won’t use the word menAnd I won’t use the word GodAnd I won’t use the word riverAnd I won’t use the word seaAnd I won’t use the word freeAnd I won’t use the word childrenFor the young of _____ are always _____What are we left with at the end?A murdered dictionary and fieldAfter silent field of unmarked graves.
Algo in the genocide
Omar Sakr
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“Algo in the genocide” From THE NIGHTMARE SEQUENCE: by Omar Sakr.
Published by Nightboat Books on September 16, 2025.
Copyright © 2025 by Omar Sakr.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Omar Sakr is the son of Arab and Turkish Muslim migrants. He is the award-winning author of five books—four poetry collections and a novel. In 2024, he received the Copyright Agency Non-Fiction Fellowship to support his debut essay collection. His latest work is The Nightmare Sequence, a poetic response in real time to the genocide in Gaza with accompanying art by Safdar Ahmed. All author royalties are donated to Palestinian charities.
The Nightmare Sequence is a searing response to the atrocities in Gaza and beyond since October 2023. Heartbreaking and humane, it is a necessary portrait of the violence committed by Israel and its Western allies. Through poetry and visual art, Omar Sakr and Safdar Ahmed capture these historic injustices, while also critiquing the role of art and media—including their own—in this time. Born of collective suffering and despair, their collaboration interrogates the position of witness: the terrible and helpless distance of vision, the impact of being exposed to violence of this scale on a daily basis, and what it means to live in a society that is actively participating in the catastrophic destruction of Arabs and Muslims overseas. With a foreword by Palestinian American poet George Abraham, this book will serve as a vital record in decades to come.
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