A Mystical Visit

A glimpse of the children of heaven...

Salem-News.com

(LONDON) - Salem-News.com believes that poetry can be a perfect forum for expressing news and important information that reaches people in a clever, creative way, instead of the standard sometimes droning news story.

Her family entered refugee status in 1967 when Israel unleashed the Six Day War where they lived. As part of a massive Diaspora that overwhelmed Palestine, they fled to London.

Nahida Izzat joined the Salem-News.com team the same day that Luke Easter became part of our group. Her words are moving and sometimes chilling because they cut nor corners in describing the tragedy of her people, the Palestinians.

Luke is our other poet and interestingly, both Nahida and Luke are very faith-based people.

Nahida is Muslim, Luke is Christian.

Yet their writings carry the same exact messages; freedom, equality, recognition of women, racial and cultural fairness; and each clearly recognizes that they are here for a purpose that is far greater than themselves.

I also want to mention that Salem-News.com writer Mamoon Alabbasi also doubles as a poet, and I do also, though I try to control myself because to me the process is utterly emotionally draining.

Being the Salem-News.com news editor is a heavy role; so much tragedy, so much death and suffering we report. When I write poetry everything moves to the front because I have to let my guard down. I admire our writers who regularly generate poetic verse.

It is all a lesson in who this team is; people willing to truthfully celebrate high moral value- yet not afraid to challenge the status quo when they do.

- Tim King

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Nahida Izzat is a Jerusalem-born Palestinian refugee who has lived in exile for over forty two years, after being forced to leave her homeland at the tender age of seven in 1967, during the six-day war. She has a degree in mathematics, but art is one of her favorite pastimes. She loves hand-made things and so makes dolls, cards, and most of her own clothes. She also writes poetry, participates in written dialogues and believes in building bridges, not walls.

She started writing when her friends insisted she should write about her memories, experiences and feelings as a Palestinian.When she did it all came out sounding—she was told—like poetry! So she self-published two books: I Believe in Miracles and Palestine, The True Story.

Her dream is to return back home to a free and liberated Palestine.

If you like poetry and are intrigued by the notion of helping the Palestinian people and learning more, you can purchase Nahida's books, I Believe in Miracles and Palestine, The True Story by visiting:

I Believe in Miracles: a Collection of Palestinian Poems

ISBN 13: 9780954839109 | ISBN 10: 0954839102

£12.99 paperback Nahida Izzat (2004)

You can write to Nahida : nahidaexiledpalestinian@gmail.com