ÉIST LEIS AN ÉANLAITH

A multilingual interpretation of the work of the Palestinian poet Marwan Makhoul. ‘I have a voice,’ says the poet Marwan Makhoul about his work, ‘that tells the public about their identity, and what we have done to preserve that identity, as Palestinians, as Arabs’. His father was Palestinian and his mother Lebanese. He grew up in Beqeia surrounded by the mountains, a landscape that frequently appears in his poetry. A Palestinian living in Israel, his poetry deals with the marginalization of Arab citizens there, and with questions of personal and national identity. He does not think that there are any more rigid forms of prose and poetry and his work draws from the ordinary speech of the people as well as from divine forms of the language. It is a bet that he sings while reciting his poetry, and is often accompanied by singers and musicians. During the war in Gaza, 2023, protestors in their millions took advantage of a poem by him on city walls around the world: ‘to write poetry that is not political poetry/ I must listen to the birds/ and to hear the birds/ the war planes must be silent’.

Marwan himself will be reading from Arabic; Irish versions by Eibhlís Carcione, Louis de Paor, and Áine Uí Foghlú; and English versions by Raphael Cohen. There will be live music by composer Seán Mac Erlaine and Margaret Lonergan will project images on a screen. Produced by IMRAM Féile Litríochta Gaeilge.