Poetry review – EVIDENCE OF WAR
Jennifer Johnson considers Alan Price’s perspective on the tragedy still unfolding in Palestine
Evidence of War – A response to Gaza
Alan Price
Culture Matters
ISBN 978-1-912710-98-0
22pp £8.00
There have been many accounts of the horrors of Gaza which have, for the most part, largely set out to convey information. Evidence of War is, instead, a creative response to what Price has gleaned about the subject from various legacy and independent media outlets. Price uses a variety of literary techniques to achieve a convincing imaginative sympathy and the result is a complex and engaging canvas. The compassion shown in the poet’s writing is due to his emphasis on humanity, or lack of it, and on some remarkable resilience.
Evidence of War begins with a 2-page introduction in which the origins of the collection are explained as is the poet’s general approach. Price hopes “this collection succeeds in hitting the right chord of justified anger and focussed compassion.” 17 poems and a piece of dramatic dialogue follow, and the collection ends with a piece of micro fiction.
Evidence of War begins with ‘Deliverance’, which imagines the process of transformation of Gaza into a Mediterranean Riviera shown in a widely shared AI video. In this poem Price uses the corporate-loving language of hyper-reality by naming a hotel “Hotel Humane” which declares “we train and celebrate employment”. This is undercut by readers being told that staff will be “instructed to watch, stalk and shoot”.
Another writing technique comes in the poem ‘Famine Spread Sheet’ which seems to be simply about a girl finding an orange but then concludes ends with a surreal element. We are told “a frustrated bureaucrat” has hurled
his blood red orange,
out of a window of the UN building
In Geneva to miraculously land in Gaza.
This surreal image is in sharp contrast to the realistic media quotations cited at the start of the poem.
In ‘The Rescue’, the rescuers and rescued are linked by various lines, despite their different beliefs or non-beliefs. There is an aid worker who “indulged in a little palmistry”. Despite her not believing in “such maps of fate” she found herself “cleansing a hand to energise a life line.” This line is linked to the Gazan woman’s walking repeatedly “along a road from wrecked hospital/to wrecked tent.” She later finds herself under rubble where we are told “she hallucinated, aided by the light of a phone” as she saw a rope, another line, “perhaps instructed by/a Christian or Muslim deity” to rescue her.
The under-reported musical culture of Gaza is brought into focus in the poem ‘Musical Defences’. We are told that “ouds, flutes, guitars were destroyed” but “An upright piano still stands defiant” despite its broken strings and hammers. The speaker says defiantly
I will heal it. The keyboard will sing again
We’ll bring more instruments out of hiding.
Make others anew from cans, pipes and bottles.
he list of destroyed instruments has a staccato sound as do the bits of rubbish new instruments will be made from. By contrast, a longer flowing phrase is used both for the hidden, unbroken instruments and the promising future when the repaired piano “will sing again”. This poem shows Gazans rescuing themselves and determined not to fall into despair.
Although the collection is mostly made up of poems other genres of writing are present. For example, ‘The Dogs of War’ is a dramatic dialogue that has made a common idiom literal by using real dogs, namely a military dog and a stray. The stray dog horrifies the military one by saying that humans “taste nice”. Despite the horror there is real sympathy for those suffering pain. In the poem ‘The Last Hospital’, for example, we are told that “Blood routinely mingled with tears/no longer diluting the agony”.
The title poem ‘Evidence of War’ imagines a future in which evacuees are not allowed to take “sand or earth with them” as it would be seen
As a link, proof and memory of Gaza
For blood riddled through grains and soil
Would be revealed under a microscope
Then photographed and tagged to them.
Soil is associated with home and belonging. In this imagined future an attempt is made to erase evidence of war and Gazan identity. This removal is mirrored by the doctor washing off his blood. This theme recurs in the micro-fiction piece ‘Presentiment’ where we are told how “a statue of Anat the virginal Phoenician goddess of war” was taken to Paris. A link can be made back to the first poem with its theme of emptying Gaza of its history.
I recommend this collection as it provides a richly imaginative and memorable complement to what readers might have read elsewhere about Gaza.
Mar 21 2026
London Grip Poetry Review – Alan Price
Poetry review – EVIDENCE OF WAR
Jennifer Johnson considers Alan Price’s perspective on the tragedy still unfolding in Palestine
Evidence of War – A response to Gaza
Alan Price
Culture Matters
ISBN 978-1-912710-98-0
22pp £8.00
There have been many accounts of the horrors of Gaza which have, for the most part, largely set out to convey information. Evidence of War is, instead, a creative response to what Price has gleaned about the subject from various legacy and independent media outlets. Price uses a variety of literary techniques to achieve a convincing imaginative sympathy and the result is a complex and engaging canvas. The compassion shown in the poet’s writing is due to his emphasis on humanity, or lack of it, and on some remarkable resilience.
Evidence of War begins with a 2-page introduction in which the origins of the collection are explained as is the poet’s general approach. Price hopes “this collection succeeds in hitting the right chord of justified anger and focussed compassion.” 17 poems and a piece of dramatic dialogue follow, and the collection ends with a piece of micro fiction.
Evidence of War begins with ‘Deliverance’, which imagines the process of transformation of Gaza into a Mediterranean Riviera shown in a widely shared AI video. In this poem Price uses the corporate-loving language of hyper-reality by naming a hotel “Hotel Humane” which declares “we train and celebrate employment”. This is undercut by readers being told that staff will be “instructed to watch, stalk and shoot”.
Another writing technique comes in the poem ‘Famine Spread Sheet’ which seems to be simply about a girl finding an orange but then concludes ends with a surreal element. We are told “a frustrated bureaucrat” has hurled
his blood red orange,
out of a window of the UN building
In Geneva to miraculously land in Gaza.
This surreal image is in sharp contrast to the realistic media quotations cited at the start of the poem.
In ‘The Rescue’, the rescuers and rescued are linked by various lines, despite their different beliefs or non-beliefs. There is an aid worker who “indulged in a little palmistry”. Despite her not believing in “such maps of fate” she found herself “cleansing a hand to energise a life line.” This line is linked to the Gazan woman’s walking repeatedly “along a road from wrecked hospital/to wrecked tent.” She later finds herself under rubble where we are told “she hallucinated, aided by the light of a phone” as she saw a rope, another line, “perhaps instructed by/a Christian or Muslim deity” to rescue her.
The under-reported musical culture of Gaza is brought into focus in the poem ‘Musical Defences’. We are told that “ouds, flutes, guitars were destroyed” but “An upright piano still stands defiant” despite its broken strings and hammers. The speaker says defiantly
I will heal it. The keyboard will sing again
We’ll bring more instruments out of hiding.
Make others anew from cans, pipes and bottles.
he list of destroyed instruments has a staccato sound as do the bits of rubbish new instruments will be made from. By contrast, a longer flowing phrase is used both for the hidden, unbroken instruments and the promising future when the repaired piano “will sing again”. This poem shows Gazans rescuing themselves and determined not to fall into despair.
Although the collection is mostly made up of poems other genres of writing are present. For example, ‘The Dogs of War’ is a dramatic dialogue that has made a common idiom literal by using real dogs, namely a military dog and a stray. The stray dog horrifies the military one by saying that humans “taste nice”. Despite the horror there is real sympathy for those suffering pain. In the poem ‘The Last Hospital’, for example, we are told that “Blood routinely mingled with tears/no longer diluting the agony”.
The title poem ‘Evidence of War’ imagines a future in which evacuees are not allowed to take “sand or earth with them” as it would be seen
As a link, proof and memory of Gaza
For blood riddled through grains and soil
Would be revealed under a microscope
Then photographed and tagged to them.
Soil is associated with home and belonging. In this imagined future an attempt is made to erase evidence of war and Gazan identity. This removal is mirrored by the doctor washing off his blood. This theme recurs in the micro-fiction piece ‘Presentiment’ where we are told how “a statue of Anat the virginal Phoenician goddess of war” was taken to Paris. A link can be made back to the first poem with its theme of emptying Gaza of its history.
I recommend this collection as it provides a richly imaginative and memorable complement to what readers might have read elsewhere about Gaza.