London: Hundreds attend evening of poetry for Palestine

Nandita Dowson

There was standing room only at Cafe Palestina in Kentish Town, north London on Friday, when the Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association, (CADFA) hosted an open mic evening of Poetry for Palestine.

There were some wonderful contributions by poets of several different faiths and nationalities. An American Jewish writer, opened his powerful poem with: 'Soldiers on TikTok, dancing on death .... with glee celebrate a baby's last breath…'.

There were several Muslim contributions and one reading from a Catholic priest. The CADFA website should be be posting up more films of the evening soon - and we'll bring you the link here on on ICN.

The event was a fundraiser for Medical Aid for Palestinians. (MAP)

Nandita Dowson, Director of CADFA read her poem entitled No Words.

No words

horror upon horror

the young man stumbles with his camera open

through raw rubble

eyes wide with

... horror

through flattened familiar buildings

past people leaning into holes shouting

anyone down there?

people carefully picking babies from the wreckage

children piled on to stretchers

people screaming

the young man weeping dry eyed

I've never in my life seen

he says

three rockets at once.

But here I've never in my life seen one rocket

I don't remember friends

visiting family suddenly woken

sending pictures of fires in shelled buildings

in the otherwise pitch black night

No power for those they want to bomb to the stone age

'Seven of my family killed, one lost a leg'

'one woman had a baby as the explosion happened'

A baby in the rubble

in this circumstance could you call her Hope?

Palestinians

pulling words from the rubble

send what they can of videos

photos

information

snippets of emotion

my childhood friend

gone

thirteen members of my family

killed

how can I go on?

shout

with unpowered voices

at internationals

what double standards

the BBC news plays an Israeli funeral for five minutes

and tries to shut

our 7500 deaths

tens of thousands of wounded

flattened neighbourhoods across half of Gaza

dark

thirsty

hungry

homeless

hurting

reality

into a matchbox

cuts off discussion

of our more than a century

so far

of hell at the hands of colonists

always death

death from the British when we stood up and said our land cant be promised by you to someone else

death from the Irgun and the Stern Gang

when they were using terror to force a division of our land

terror to drive us from our cities and villages

death from the Israeli state

if refugees dared to return to tend their trees

if people remaining moved out of turn

death in massacres

way before Sabra and Shatila

death in countless wars

and countless checkpoints

with countless excuses and countless grieving

we are worth nothing to you

shout the Palestinians

your human rights

hypocrisies

your Geneva Conventions

for some people only

your care for children

lies

here

this time

we have over two

thousand

children

killed

and the rest

shaking,

LINKS

Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association: www.cadfa.org/

Medical Aid for Palestinians: www.map.org.uk/