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This fundraising episode of Season 9 aired on Saturday 7th December 2024. It is produced and hosted by Damien B. Donnelly. Below are details of all guests.
A Podcast for Palestine
Donate to the fundraiser at Go Fund Me
Adam Wyeth
Adam Wyeth is an award-winning poet, playwright, and essayist with five books from Salmon Press. His latest collection, about:blank, was adapted into an audio-immersive production at Dublin Theatre Festival 2021. In April 2024, his collaborative project there will be no silence with composer David Downes premiered at The National Concert Hall. ‘Operation: Cleansing The Leaven’ was published in his 2016 collection The Art of Dying, an Irish Times Book of the Year.
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Áine Hayden
Áine Hayden is a poet, photographer, activist and a member of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign for many years now. She began writing poetry in 2019, was a finalist in the first Fingal Poetry Festival Poetry Slam in 2020, received 3rd prize in the Francis Ledwidge International Poetry Awards 2021 and 2nd prize in 2023. She had three poems published in ‘Illuminations’, a collection published in 2022, has given readings at the ‘D8 Live’, Richmond Barracks, and various other events and open mics, and runs a small writing group in conjunction with Richmond Barracks. She was one of the poets invited to read at Donal O’Fallons ‘Remembering Michael Hartnett’ with Dermot Bolger in the Barracks on the 4th December just gone. Her poem ‘Perhaps my pen is Hamas’ has also been heard at several events and demonstrations for Gaza/ Palestine, including two events marking one year of the genocide in Gaza.
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Amy Abdullah Barry
Amy Abdullah Barry originally from Malaysia, now lives in Athlone. She is a poet, short story writer, facilitator & event coordinator. She is published widely including Cyphers, Southword, London Tribune, Paris Lit Up, The Poets’ Republic, RTE and elsewhere. Featured in Breaking Ground Ireland. Her poems have been translated into many languages including Irish, Arabic, Italian, Persian, Turkish, Azerbaijani & Spanish. Chosen for the Poetry Ireland Introduction Series 2022. A travel lover, she previously worked in the media, hotel & energy industry. Amy has been awarded literature bursaries from the Arts Council & Words Ireland. Her poems have been highly commended, shortlisted, long listed, as well as winning local & international awards. An Honorary member of the Pablo Neruda Association, Italy. Amy is the founder of Global Writers. She regularly organises poetry & music events in Athlone. She has performed her work in Ireland and internationally. She facilitated several creative writing workshops for Poetry Ireland (Poetry in a Van), the Irish Writers centre, schools, and libraries. ‘Flirting with Tigers’ is her debut collection of poems published by Dedalus Press in 2023. Her collection received great reviews in the Irish Independent, Irish Examiner, Senior Times magazine, The Galway Review, Roscommon Herald & Amazon.
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Anne Tannam
Anne Tannam is the author of four poetry collections: Take This Life (Wordonthestreet 2011), Tides Shifting Across My Sitting Room Floor (Salmon 2017), Twenty-six Letters of a New Alphabet ( Salmon 2021) and dismantle (Salmon 2024). She is the current Poet in Residence with Poetry Ireland (2023 – 2025).
Visit Anne at her website
Anne read a poem by Hiba Abu Nada translated by Huda Fakhreddine
Hiba Abu Nada was a Palestinian poet, novelist, and educator. Her novel الأكسجين ليس للموتى (Oxygen is Not for the Dead) won second place in the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity in 2017. She was killed in her home in the Gaza Strip by an Israeli airstrike on October 20, 2023. She was 32.
Huda Fakhreddine’s work focuses on modernist movements or trends in Arabic poetry and their relationship to the Arabic literary tradition. She is interested in the role of the Arabic qaṣīda as a space for negotiating the foreign and the indigenous, the modern and the traditional, and its relationship to other poetic forms such as the free verse poem and the prose poem. She is the author of Metapoesis in the Arabic Tradition (Brill, 2015) and the co-translator of Lighthouse for the Drowning (BOA editions, 2017) and The Sky That Denied Me (University of Texas Press, 2020). Her translations of modern Arabic poems have appeared in Banipal, World Literature Today, Nimrod, ArabLit Quarterly and Middle Eastern Literatures. Her book of creative non-fiction titled Zaman Saghir taht shams thaniya (A Small Time under a Different Sun) was published by Dar al-Nahda, Beirut in 2019. Her book The Arabic Prose Poem: Poetic Theory and Practice is forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press in 2020.
Annick Yerem
Annick Yerem is a poet and the EIC of Sídhe Press. All she wants right now is a free Palestine and for her government to stop delivering weapons to Israel.
Khawla Badwan is a scholar of language, education, culture and social justice. She is a Palestinian refugee who lived in Gaza for 14 years. Keep Telling of Gaza by Khawla Kadwan and Alison Phipps is published by Sídhe Press
Keep Telling of Gaza is available at Sidhe Press
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Batoul Hania
Batoul Hania shared a poem about her niece Sawsan, killed by a missile strike along with her husband, their kids and 30 people from her husband’s family. Batoul and her husband, Zak, married in Ireland where he was studying, had 4 children and later returned to Palestine. However, when the genocide began, they all tried to leave but Zak was held back and for 6 months they campaigned to bring him home to his family in Ireland. They are now reunited.
Catherine Ann Cullen
Catherine Ann Cullen is author of seven books, and a Postdoctoral Fellow with UCD/Poetry Ireland, reclaiming the street poets of Victorian Dublin. She was Poetry Ireland’s inaugural Poet in Residence 2019-2022, for which she won her second B2A Award for Best Use of Creativity in the Community. She is also an award-winning children’s writer and songwriter.
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Colm Ó’Ceallacháin
Tá dhá chnuasach gearrscéalta foilsithe ag Colm Ó Ceallacháin go dtí seo, agus d’fhoilsigh Leabhar Breac a chéad úrscéal, ‘Fiche’ i 2024.
Colm Ó Ceallacháin has published two collections of short stories in Irish, and Leabhar Breac has this year published his debut novel ‘Fiche’ which was awarded first prize for a work of prose at Oireachtas na Gaeilge in 2023.
For more on Colm check our Leabhar Breac
Colm’s poem, Guth 012, is a translation of the poem, If I should die, by Refaat Alareer.
Refaat Alareer (1979–2023) was a professor of world literature and creative writing at the Islamic University of Gaza and the editor of Gaza Writes Back: Short Stories from Young Writers in Gaza, Palestine (2013). He was killed by an IDF airstrike on December 6, 2023, along with his brother, nephew, his sister, and three of her children.
There was a fundraising game played in summer ’24 between Bohemians F.C. and Palestine women’s football teams and before it began, Niamh Learmont read that poem. Listen to it here
Colm’s second poem, Guth 013, is a translation of the poem, Oh Rascal Children of Gaza, from 2014 by Khaled Juma.
Khaled Juma is a prominent Palestinian poet, children’s author, journalist, and editor. Born in Rafah, he grew up in Shaboura Camp in the southern Gaza Strip after his parents were displaced from Hatta to al-Majdal. Throughout his career, Juma has written traditional poetry, free verse, colloquial songs, musical plays, children’s stories, and short stories. He has authored over one hundred songs in collaboration with renowned Palestinian composers such as Saeed Murad, Awda Tarjuman, and Mahmoud Al-Abadi. Juma published his first poetry collection, Rafah: Alphabet, Distance, and Memory, with Osman Hussein in 1992. This was followed by ten additional poetry collections, the latest being My Aunt, The Phoenix in 2024, more than twenty children’s books, and numerous plays. His works have been translated into English, French, Spanish, Bulgarian, and other languages. Currently residing in Ramallah, Khaled Juma serves as the Head of the Cultural Department at the Palestinian News and Information Agency (WAFA).
Read more poems by Khaled on Arab Lit
Eibhlís Carcione
Eibhlís Carcione is an award-winning bilingual poet and children’s author from Cork. Her three poetry collections in Irish, Tonn Chlíodhna (2015), Eala Oíche (2019), and Bean Róin (2023) are published by Coiscéim. She has twice been a winner of Duais Fhoras na Gaeilge, Listowel Writer’s Week. In 2022 she won first prize in Féile Raifteirí and Comórtas Filíochta, Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiach, Belfast. She was awarded an Arts Council literature bursary in 2021. Her debut children’s novel Welcome to Dead Town Raven McKay was published by Everything With Words in 2023. Her new children’s novel Black Gables was published in 2024.
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Eibhlís read her poem Gearrchaile Gaza, published in Comhar for the special issue on war in October 2024. She also read my translation of Marwan Makhoul’s poem The Train To Tel Aviv and the English translation by Raphael Cohen. She was delighted to meet them both at the special Listen To The Birds event last April at The Cork World Book Fest organised by IIMRAM.
Marwan Makhoul is a Palestinian poet, born in 1979 in the village of al-Buqei’a, Upper Galilee, to a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother. He works in engineering as a managing director of a construction company. He has several published works in poetry, prose and drama, including the poetry collections: Hunter of Daffodils, Land of the Sad Passiflora, Verses the Poems Forgot with Me, Where Is My Mom, and A Letter from the Last Man. For his first play, This Isn’t Noah’s Ark, Makhoul won the best playwright award at The Acre Theatre Festival in 2009. His poetry is also award winning and has appeared worldwide in Arabic publications. Several of his poems have been set to music. Selections from his poetry have been translated into English, Turkish, Italian, German, French, Hebrew, Irish, Serbian, Hindi, Polish, Dutch, Albanian, Macedonian, Portuguese, Amharic, Eastern Armenian, Bangla, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi, Russian, and Urdu.
Fiona O’Rourke
Fiona O’Rourke’s short stories, autofiction, essays, and accidental poetry have been published, broadcast, and translated. Her debut novel was a joint winner at the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair 2016. Since earning an MPhil in Creative Writing at Trinity College Dublin, she has facilitated courses in community, libraries and festivals. She is the curator and facilitator for Northern Soul Roadshow and the organiser/MC for Open Mic for Gaza.
More at FionaO.substack.com
Fiona read poems by Mosab Abu Toha, What a Gazan Should do During an Israeli Air Strike and Memorise Your Dream
Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, short-story writer, and essayist from Gaza. His second collection of poetry is Forest of Noise, a New York Times Notable Book, “a powerful, capacious, and profound” (Ocean Vuong) new collection of poems about life in Gaza. His first collection of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and won the Palestine Book Award, the American Book Award, and the Walcott Poetry Prize. Abu Toha is also the founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, which he hopes to rebuild. He won an Overseas Press Club Award for his “Letter from Gaza” columns for The New Yorker.
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Jane Clarke
Jane Clarke is the author of three poetry collections, The River (2015), When the Tree Falls (2019) and A Change in the Air (2023) published by Bloodaxe Books. She edited the illustrated anthology Windfall: Irish Nature Poems to Inspire and Connect (Hachette Books Ireland, 2023). Jane’s most recent collection, A Change in the Air, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2023 and the T.S. Eliot Prize 2023. She received an Arts Council of Ireland Literature Bursary Award in 2024 for the completion of her fourth collection.
Find out more about Jane on her website
Jane read a poem by the late Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Fady Joudah
Mahmoud Darwish was the most acclaimed poet in the Arab world and widely considered to be on the shortlist for the Nobel Prize. His poetry is an indisputable testimony to the catastrophe of the Palestinian people. Over the last twenty years, especially since the aftermath of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, his poetry came to embrace exile as a universal human emotion. Darwish published his first book of poetry in 1964, at the age of 22. During his lifetime, he published more than thirty books of poetry and prose, which have been translated into 35 languages. His twenty books of poetry include The Adam of Two Edens, Mural, A Bed of Stranger, Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone?, Diwan, and Eleven Planets. A former member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Executive Council, and the Poet Laureate of Palestine, he helped draft the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence. He resigned over the Oslo Accords in 1993. Darwish died in August 2008 following heart surgery. He was buried in the West Bank City of Ramallah and granted a state funeral.
Fady Joudah has published four collections of poems, The Earth in the Attic, Alight, Textu—a book-long sequence of short poems whose form is based on text message character count—and, most recently, Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance. He has translated several collections of poetry from Arabic and is the co-editor and co-founder of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. He was a winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition in 2007 and has received a PEN award, a Banipal/Times Literary Supplement prize from the UK, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in Houston, with his wife and kids, where he practices internal medicine.
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Jessamine O’Connor
Jessamine O’Connor’s collection Silver Spoon is published by Salmon Poetry, she has chapbooks with Nine Pens Press and the Black Light Engine Room press, and is an editor with Drunk Muse Press.
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Jessica Traynor
Jessica Traynor is a poet, essayist and librettist, and poetry editor at Banshee. Herdebut poetry collection, Liffey Swim (Dedalus Press, 2014), was shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award. The Quick (Dedalus Press, 2018) was an Irish Times poetry choice. Awards include the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary and Hennessy New Writer of the Year. Operas include Paper Boat, a commission from Irish National Opera and Music for Galway, and The Wanderer, commissioned by Irish Modern Dance Theatre. Residencies include Yeats Society Sligo, Seamus Heaney Home Place and the DLR LexIcon. Pit Lullabies (Bloodaxe, 2022) is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. She was the recipient of the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry 2023 and the Field Day Tundish Award 2024 for contribution to the arts in Ireland. She has reviewed poetry for The Irish Times, RTÉ Radio 1’s Arena, and for Poetry Ireland Review. She was an inaugural Creative Fellow of UCD, where she completed her MA in Creative Writing in 2008, and has held residencies including the Yeats Society, Sligo, and Carlow College. She was Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Writer in Residence for 2021-22 and University of Galway Writer in Residence for 2023. She is poetry editor at Banshee. Her new collection, New Arcana, arrives in 2025.
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JP Seabright
JP Seabright (she/they) is a queer disabled writer living in London. They have four solo pamphlets published and two collaborations, encompassing poetry, prose and experimental work. They explore themes of gender, sexuality, trauma and the climate crisis in their work, and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Forward Prize (twice), as well as shortlisted (twice) for a Saboteur Award for Best Collaborative Work.
JP read a poem by Mosab Abu Toha, What is Home?
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Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, scholar, and librarian from the Gaza Strip. His debut book of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear (2022) won the Palestine Book Award and an American Book Award. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Walcott Poetry Prize.
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Lizzie Eldridge
Lizzie Eldridge is a writer and human rights activist from Glasgow. She’s written 2 published novels – Duende (Amazon 2014) and Vandalism (Merlin Publishers 2015). Vandalism was shortlisted for a National Book Prize in Malta where she lived for 12 years. It was also selected as one of the Best Books 2017 by a Glasgow branch of Waterstones. This year, Lizzie published a collection of flash fiction – It Doesn’t Matter When (Alien Buddha Press 2024). As well as appearing in anthologies, her work is regularly published in lit mags, including Northern Gravy, Literary Revelations, On-The-High, Unapologetic, and, of course, Eat the Storms. She is actively involved in protest movements in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
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Mikey Cullen
Mikey Cullen is a Dublin Poet, secondary school teacher, actor,activist, lyricist and spoken word Artist. He regularly performs at shows and festivals across Ireland including previously at Electric Picnic, Feile Belfast, All Together Now and many more. Videos of his spoken word have amassed well over a million views in total online. His poetry has been published in print in ‘Totally Dublin’, ‘The Wall Street Journal’, ‘The Poetrys Dead Podcasts’ anthology, ‘Dlúthpháirtíocht’ and ‘Void’ amongst others and has been performed on National radio on many occasions including various RTE programmes and Newstalks Pat Kenny show.
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Nidhi Zak Aria Eipe
Nidhi Zak Aria Eipe is a poet, pacifist and fabulist. Auguries of a Minor God, her first collection, was published with Faber & Faber in 2021. A Next Generation Artist with the Arts Council of Ireland, she is a member of the Expert Advisory Committee to Culture Ireland and the Board of the Dublin Book Festival. She is the Commissioning Editor at Skein Press, Poetry Editor at Fallow Media and Contributing Editor with The Stinging Fly. She currently serves on the jury for the 2025 Dublin Literary Award.
Find out more about Nidhi Zac Aria Eipe here
Nidhi read a poem by Fady Joudah
Fady Joudah has published four collections of poems, The Earth in the Attic, Alight, Textu—a book-long sequence of short poems whose form is based on text message character count—and, most recently, Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance. He has translated several collections of poetry from Arabic and is the co-editor and co-founder of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. He was a winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition in 2007 and has received a PEN award, a Banipal/Times Literary Supplement prize from the UK, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in Houston, with his wife and kids, where he practices internal medicine.
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Sean Hewitt
Seán Hewitt is a poet, memoirist, novelist and literary critic. His debut collection of poetry, Tongues of Fire, won The Laurel Prize in 2021, and was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, and a Dalkey Literary Award. In 2020, he was chosen by The Sunday Times as one of their “30 under 30” artists in Ireland. His book J.M. Synge: Nature, Politics, Modernism was published with Oxford University Press (2021). His memoir, All Down Darkness Wide, was published by Jonathan Cape in the UK and Penguin Press in the USA (2022). It was shortlisted for Biography of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards, for the Foyles Book of the Year in non-fiction, for the RSL Ondaatje Prize, the Polari Prize, and for a LAMBDA award. He won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2022. 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World, illustrated by Luke Edward Hall, was published in 2023. A second collection of poetry, Rapture’s Road, was published in 2024. His work has been translated into 8 languages. His debut novel, Open, Heaven, is forthcoming in Spring 2025. He is Assistant Professor in Literary Practice at Trinity College Dublin, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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Sean read a poem by Mourid Barghouti
Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti, was unable to return to his home in Palestine after 1967. He was a beloved poet, performer, public speaker, and memoirist. He wrote the popular memoir, I Saw Ramallah, which chronicled his return to the West Bank in 1997 and was translated by novelist Ahdaf Souief. He also wrote a follow-up memoir, I Was Born There, I Was Born Here, which tells his story from 1998 to 2010, translated by Humphrey Davies. He published more than a dozen collections of poems, and a collection of his work, Midnight and Other Poems, was translated by his life partner, Radwa Ashour.
Sue Finch
Sue Finch’s first collection, ‘Magnifying Glass’, was published in 2020. Her work has also appeared in a number of online magazines. She loves the coast, peculiar things and the scent of ice-cream freezers. Her 2nd collection, Welcome to the Museum of a Life, was published by Black Eyes Publishing UK in 2024.
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Sue read a poem by Alison Phipps from the book, Keep Telling of Gaza, by Khawla Kadwan and Alison Phipps, published by Sídhe Press
Alison Phipps is UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Education, Languages and Arts. She has worked with Palestinians in Gaza for 15 years, on projects attempting to sustain a just peace.
Keep Telling of Gaza is available at Sidhe Press
Donate to this fundrasing epsidoe at Go Fund Me
Damien B Donnelly, Producer, Host and Poet
Damien B Donnelly is a 48-year-old Irish, adopted, queer writer and podcast producer who spent 23 years living in Paris, Amsterdam, and London working in the fashion industry, returning to Dublin at the end of 2020. He is the host and producer of the poetry podcast Eat the Storms and the editor-in-chief of The Storms, a journal of poetry, prose and visual art. His debut pamphlet, Eat the Storms, published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press, nominated for a Pushcart Prize and featured on the Poetry Book Society Winter List 2020/21, followed by a Pushcart Prize nominated Stickleback (micro collection) and In the Jitterfritz of Neon, a conversational pamphlet co-written with Eilín de Paor. His first full collection Enough! was published by Hedgehog in August 2022. His poetry and short stories have appeared in numerous journals, both online and in print. His 2nd full collection Back from Away was published on the 8th May 2024 with Turas Press
The Storms journal is available here
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You can purchase his pamphlets and collections at his website
Backing music for Eat the Storms is from Purple Planet Royalty Free Music
You can find us on many platforms including Spotify and here is the link…
Storm Shelter 