Wander Bairbre Flood

'So I wanted to bring Syria back to life, the Syria that I fell in love with before war. And that's what I wanted to do. That's what I did in the book. Like I talk about food, my grandma's cooking, the music, scenery, the literature, the books, the love scenes, the love chapters where I fall in love with my husband. And I wanted to bring that to life. So in the book, the war is just a small chapter of it, but for me, the most important thing was life before war and after.'

Suad Aldarra is a Syrian-Irish writer and data scientist. She was selected as the Common Currency writer in residence for Cuirt International Festival and has been on panels at many different literary festivals throughout Ireland, including at the Dalkey Book Festival, and most recently in April 2024, at the Cork World Book Festival. Her debut memoir, I Don’t Want to Talk About Home was published by Penguin in 2022, and was shortlisted for the ‘An Post Irish Biography of the Year’ Award.

Follow Suad Aldarra here and here, and her website.

Produced by Bairbre Flood with the support of the Arts Council of Ireland.

Continuing on with the African Youth Artistic Poetry poets from Dzaleka in Malawi, I’m delighted to have Kenny Mujago, Mirielle Abedi, Eagle, and Harry Rama as my guests today.

'A lot of my poems are advocating for Africa and refugees.' - Harry Rama

Kenny Mujago, reads an extract from his story, ‘A Snack From The Corner Street’ about the myriad connections food like chapati creates. Mirielle Abedi reads her poems, 'Wipe My Tears', and 'Woman', Eagle reads his poem 'Tears of Innocence' and Harry Rama recites two of his pieces:

'Ask yourself why? To us poor, never say I am not me, but say I am me with the confidence without fearing anybody. Today is me. After so many years you. Life changing time, not because I'm wearing these clothes. Then you wanna undermine me, then you wanna laugh at me, but you don't know my tomorrow.' - Harry Rama

Funded by the Arts Council of Ireland and produced by Bairbre Flood.

Charles Lipanda Matenga is a poet and activist and founder of AYAP - African Youth Artistic Poetry. His poems have been published in the anthology ‘Our Voices Are Gathering’ in 2023 and ‘Being A Refugee Wasn’t A Choice’ due out later this year.



'Our flag is dying for you have failed to protect your mother Congo. You brought war instead of peace. When will you stop grinding and crushing us? We are spice in the mortar. How long these bloodshed be swimming eternal? We are refugees with no shelters. The rhythm of hymns sang by souls. For the guns, guns, guns have been killing us.'



Ruth Takondwa a poet and advocate for gender equality and refugee rights in Dzaleka refugee camp, She reads 'A Hopeless Girl', 'A Woman In Esther':

'A girl in Esther, she has been useless for so long. Seeing her with a bag on her back, laughing at her, that she's wasting her time for. But see now she's opening evils and poverty doors. She's walking above the ground. Even the wind is afraid to attack. See, she's empowering the girls making word honey for girls.

Now she's very fantastic.'



Firstborn, poet and activist, was selected to be part of the Global Young Influencers group in Malawi. He’s got a unique style, influenced by the Caribbean poet EA Prince, and he reads two pieces, including 'Is It A Case?':

'Africa, save your tomorrow's generation. Build peace in your neighbor's mansion. Escape the white colonization. Save our mother Congo. Today, it's us. Tomorrow might be anyone.'



Produced by Bairbre Flood with the support of the Arts Council of Ireland.

We talk about de-colonialising beauty standards, writing as a lifeline, experiencing the world through the eyes of her daughter, and 'setting a platform where things that we’re uncomfortable with discussing are being discussed'.



⁠Neo Florence Gilson⁠ is a poet, writer and storyteller from South Africa. In 2021, she was awarded the ⁠Play it Forward Fellowship⁠ with Skein Press. Her writing is published in The Stinging Fly, Storm's Journal of Poetry, Prose and Visual Art, The Irish Examiner and Poetry Jukebox Belfast. And she's Artist in Residence with ⁠Sample Studios⁠ and the Graffiti Theatre Company in Cork.



Follow her: @neogilsonartist



Thanks to the Arts Council of Ireland for their continued support.



Produced by Bairbre Flood (@bairbreflood)

Palestinian poet Marwan Makhoul has published several works of poetry, including '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'. His poems have won several awards and appeared worldwide in Arabic publications and translated into many languages.



'That poem was written ten years ago. It's exactly the same details. The world just keeps quiet, you know. The war keeps repeating itself.' - Marwan Makhoul on 'Portrait of Gaza'



Marwan was invited to Ireland by poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin (Poetry Ireland and Liam Carson of IMRAM) for the 'Listen To The Birds' series of multilingual events which blended Arabic and English - and Irish versions of his poems by Eibhlis Carcione, Liam De Paor and Aine Ni Fhoghlu. Two of these translations by Eibhlis Carcione are featured in this episode.



Marwan recites 'Portrait of Gaza', 'Verses The Poems Forgot About Me' and 'On The Train To Tel Aviv', and Raphael reads the English translations.

We talk about many things, including why it's so important that artists speak out about what's happening right now, and how to prevent poetry from slipping into sloganeering while also engaging with political issues.



'The artist through the creative process, they give a new image of the personal and the national...Politicians, they put makeup on the truth. Whereas the role of the artist is to  wash away that makeup, and actually expose some kind of reality.'



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Wander is an Arts Council of Ireland funded podcast series produced by Bairbre Flood which explores poetry related to migration, human rights and refugee solidarity.

Since October 7th, Israel has killed at least thirteen Palestinian poets and writers in Gaza. One of the most renowned is Saleem Al-Naffar. Throughout his life and career he advocated for peaceful resistance and documented the Palestinian struggle to survive.

Hamas’ actions on October 7th and their refusal to hand over the hostages were despicable actions by a corrupt terrorist organisation. But Hamas’ actions were not carried out by the thousands of men, women and children who’ve been killed since October. Hamas is not these thirteen poets and writers. Hamas is not Saleem Al-Naffar.

Al-Naffar was born in a refugee camp in Gaza, his family having been displaced from Jaffa, and as a child he moved with his family to Jordan and then Syria. He studied Arabic literature at Tishreen University in Syria and in 1994, returned to Gaza, where he published poetry collections, novels, and his autobiography.

His poem Life reads, “Knives might eat / what remains of my ribs, / machines might smash / what remains of stones, / but life is coming, / for that is its way, / creating life even for us.”

On Dec. 7 2023, Al-Naffar and his family were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their home in Gaza City. 



This is an extract of his poem, ‘O Lovers’:

'Many corners of our home

are wound with our history.

Time did not exclude us.

Their crazy evil machine

did not smash our hopes.

The perfume of right sleeps in arteries

buried inside us.

Even if our footpaths lengthened

and our tragedies went further than insane,

right will come, slowly.'

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The poet, Heyba Kamal Abu Nada, who wrote the novel Oxygen is Not for the Dead, was killed by an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza on October 20th.

The poet, novelist, and community activist Omar Abu Shaweesh was killed on October 7th during the shelling of the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza.

On October 16, writer Abdullah Al-Aqad was killed, alongside his wife and children, when an Israeli shell struck his house in Khan Younis. 

Writer and journalist Mustafa Hassan Mahmoud Al-Sawwaf was killed, alongside several members of his family, when an Israeli shell struck his home on November 18th.

And it just goes on and on. Many of these poets and writers killed along with their families.



The poet and writer Nour al-Din Hajjaj was the author of the play The Gray Ones and the novel Wings That Do Not Fly. This was his final message to the outside world:

‘This is why I am writing now; it might be my last message that makes it out to the free world, flying with the doves of peace to tell them that we love life, or at least what life we have managed to live; in Gaza all paths before us are blocked, and instead we’re just one tweet or breaking news story away from death.

Anyway, I’ll begin.

My name is Nour al-Din Hajjaj, I am a Palestinian writer, I am twenty-seven years old and I have many dreams.

I am not a number and I do not consent to my death being passing news. Say, too, that I love life, happiness, freedom, children’s laughter, the sea, coffee, writing, Fairouz, everything that is joyful—though these things will all disappear in the space of a moment.

One of my dreams is for my books and my writings to travel the world, for my pen to have wings so that no unstamped passport or visa rejection can hold it back.

Another dream of mine is to have a small family, to have a little son who looks like me and to tell him a bedtime story as I rock him in my arms.’



Nour al-Din Hajjaj was killed by an Israeli airstrike on his home in Gaza on December 2nd 2023. 

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If you want to support a Palestinian poet who managed to escape with his family - Mosab Abu Toha’s poetry book ‘Things You May Find Hidden In My Ear’.



And writer Mahmoud Jouda needs support for The Right To Narrate Our Stories.