The Age of Olive Trees

The Age of Olive Trees (Out-Spoken Press, 2025) is the debut pamphlet by Haia Mohammed, a 22-year-old poet and student from Gaza, written through an ongoing genocide. With a foreword by Sunnah Khan.

‘I carry on my shoulders the pain of a nation / and on my lips, the voice of defiance.’ Haia Mohammed’s poems are full of pain and defiance, grief and joy. They refuse to be reduced to one emotion, one reality. She writes, ‘I will not seek your pity.’ Because Gaza doesn’t need our pity. And when Gaza’s poets speak, we listen. Mohammed’s poetry documents, questions, and resists. Listen.’  

— Zeina Hashem Beck

‘Haia Mohammed’s poems feel to me like the most important work being written in the world today. They are staggeringly impactful in their honesty, strength and beauty. The people of Gaza, as Haia says, are different; they write poems that defy death. These pieces are miracles of language and spirit, they are humanity at its best and most resilient.’

— Max Porter