When words fail, seek poetry
Niamh McNally / Amy Abdullah Barry
Two poets of the writing community in Ireland respond to the genocide in Palestine. I’m lucky to have met Niamh McNally through Northern Soul Roadshow and Amy Abdullah Barry through her Flirting With Tigers launch at the Irish Writers Centre, both in 2023. It feels impossible to articulate this ongoing genocide available 24/7 on screen but these two poems provide witness to ordinary everyday life, death and survival in Palestine.
in an act of desperation / she must imprint her family name
Thanks to Belfast poet Niamh McNally for her permission to post BLOODLINE recently included in Dlúthpháirtíocht, a collection of art and poetry in aid of Palestinian Red Crescent.
Gaza fixed into an eerie moonscape
Thanks also to Athlone poet Amy Abdullah Barry for her permission to reproduce here A MOUTHFUL OF STONES included in the Galway Review:
I never thought I would see dessert that way.
To me, crumble was merely crumble —
a great huddle of apple and cinnamon,
biscuit cascading to the swirl of my spoon.
Newshour:
Gaza fixed into an eerie moonscape —
Smoke rises from piles of debris,
bricks and concrete dust,
where homes used to be,
dusty people shouting for help,
blood like irrevocable stains on their skin.
The camera closes in on an old lady
frail as an autumn leaf.
She cries, “I’m alive! Alhamdullilah.
I couldn’t breathe.
My mouth was full of stones.
Everything is gone…”
I look up from my dish
and see our pristine festive plates,
our shiny photos and all the spoils
of a life lived at relative ease.
The last spoonful succumbs to my gentle nudging.
The old lady’s home is crumbling
just like my favourite dessert —
which I may never enjoy again.
(As seen on Al-Jazeera Newshour on 7th October. The Israeli bombing of Gaza—with thousands dead, hospitals at the brink of collapse, infrastructure crumbling—intensified.)