POEMS FOR PALESTINE
The first launch of the Anthology Turangalîla-Palestine (published by Dairbhre) takes place in the Shakshuka Restaurant, Rathmines, Dublin, 4pm – 6pm, Tuesday 17th September.
Editors: John Ennis and David Mallaghan
Just as the school kids on the front cover wrote the names of their dead schoolmates on a piece of paper so they would not forget them, some contributing poets to the book (including an Irish Poetry-Slam Winner) wrote short poems for named Palestinians killed by Israeli colonizing forces. Why? So that their Palestinian names will forever be remembered.
The anthology has verse in English, Irish and Spanish, by thirty poets, with Canadian First Nations and verse in Arabic and quotations from Palestinian poets. The book is a tribute to the bravery of Palestinians resistant in the face of impossible odds as in the back-cover photo. In the words of poet Tamim Al Bargouti writing a poem on fourteen-year-old Faris Adeh, who died facing a tank, “I didn’t write anything. I just read it off his feet” (p.111).
The Dublin launch will include music and readings of lists of those killed in the Great March of Return and Gaza Bombings. The book comes with artwork by Mohammad Sabaaneh on the plight of Palestinian women and the fate of kids. The book marker has a quote from contemporary poet, Dareen Tatour. The present State of Israel is appealing her acquittal at the Supreme Court for her poem “Resist, My People, Resist Them”. All proceeds from book sales go toward commissioning a monument in Palestine for those murdered by Israeli forces.
All proceeds of the book go to families of the bereaved in Palestine.
