sarah_thebooknerd 's review for:

You Can Be the Last Leaf: Selected Poems by Maya Abu Al-Hayat

3.75

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

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I read this poetry collection on Everand. 

The poems have a theme of motherhood, 

love, loss, grief, war and checkpoints. 

Every time I pick up a Palestinian poetry 

collection it is very clear that art is a form 

of resistance and a form of coping. 

Some of the poems are very moving and 

others I struggled with but I am curious

how much is lost within the translation

itself. Emotion is so much of poetry but 

words in some languages do not always

translate well and so I think part of it is that. The poem- “Mahmoud” is one that 

I think everyone should read. As a mom 

I felt that one to my core and cried.