Remi Kanazi

Remi Kanazï (born 1981) is a Palestinian-American performance poet, writer and organizer based in New York City. He is the editor of the anthology of hip hop, poetry and art, Poets for Palestine, the author of two collections of poetry, Poetic Injustice: Writings on Resistance and Palestine (2011) and Before the Next Bomb Drops: Rising Up From Brooklyn to Palestine (2015). His political commentary has been featured by news outlets throughout the world, including the New York Times, Salon, Al Jazeera English, and BBC Radio. He has appeared in the Palestine Festival of Literature as well as Poetry International. He is a Lannan Residency Fellow and is on the advisory board of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

Life and work

Poetry Inspired by underground hip hop, Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, and the work of artists like Suheir Hammad and Carlos Andres Gomez, Kanazi began writing spoken word. Approaching his work from a humanist perspective, Kanazi says, "This isn’t about me being a Palestinian or me being an Arab. It’s about a system of oppression and what’s being done to a people. So whether you’re talking about police brutality or the US-Mexico border or Afghanistan or the war in Iraq or the plight of Palestinians, what they’re going through and the injustice that’s being perpetrated against them is what matters. And that’s what we’re working against – systems of oppression." He has appeared on Al Jazeera English and BBC Radio and has toured North America, the UK, and the Middle East, with appearances at the Palestine Festival of Literature and at Poetry International. and that "Israel needs to feel more pain. More destruction, more death, afraid in shelters, wondering if this is their last breath. Every moment going forward should be sheer terror until genocide ends and Israeli colonial conquest is disrupted."

ICC campaign In 2016, when Kanazi was on a tour of campuses promoting his latest book Before the Next Bomb Drops: Rising Up From Brooklyn to Palestine, Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) ran a covert campaign against him, having professionals setting up Facebook groups pretending to be student-operated. These groups appeared just before Kanazi's meeting at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and San Jose State University.

Publications Poets for Palestine (ed.), Al Jisser, 2008, Poetic Injustice – Writings on Resistance and Palestine, RoR Publishing, 2011, Before the Next Bomb Drops: Rising Up From Brooklyn to Palestine, 2015,