World Poetry Day 21st March 2014
21st March is United Nations Poetry Day : http://portal.unesco.org/
VIDEO : Teaching Poetry to Prisoners with Pat Winslow and Mike Marqusee :
http://www.youtube.com/
reading of 3 new poems by Pat Winslow about Talha
& new poem read by Mike Marqusee & new speech
(1 hour 30 minutes)
FACEBOOK EVENT : https://www.facebook.com/events/628893050513495/
Twitter hashtag
#TalhaPoetry
#WorldPoetryDay
BUY / TWEET / SHARE HIS PRISON POETRY BOOKLET HERE :
http://shop.ihrc.org/
This be the Answer
Poetry Day -
remember British Poet Talha Ahsan on World Poetry Day 2014
Share links & also read Talha poetry in public
(on your blog / Youtube / Retweet / Sharing is caring)
Talha is an awarding-winning poet and translator.
Winner of Platinum, Gold, Bronze Koestler Award for his poetry. 1st prize in UPs Literary competition. Selected Morning Star poetry of the year 2013 by poet Pat Winslow. Read on Radio : Resonance FM, Radio Free Brighton, Manchester FM, Unity FM. Broadcast on TV (IQRA, Press, Islam Channel)
Talha has translated Arabic poems During his six-year incarceration at HMP Long Lartin he has translated a tenth-century Arabic poem, Above the Dust, by Abu Firas Al-Hamdani, on his captivity in Byzantium. Talha poetry has been published the Huffington Post, Haldane Society magazine, OOMK, Not Shut Up Magazine & more.
His work has been read in large public occaision such Love Music, Hate Racism annual gathering by Michael Rosen and Afghanistan war 11th anniversary demo. Whilst extradited, his work toured the UK via Birmingham Museum and projected on the walls of the Royal Festival Hall in London’s South Bank. His work is particularly admired by novelist A.L. Kennedy. Talha poetry has been toured in all major cities of England, Scotland and Wales.
Talha’s poetry has been translated into Italian, Arabic and German
A new book of Talha poetry will be published soon with an introduction by his lawyer Gareth Peirce
Critical acclaim on Talha’s poetry
“Hauntingly Beautiful” – The Independent
“the best poetry about Faith in prison” – Bruce Kent -
Gareth Peirce” He [Talha Ahsan] is a serious and principled and brilliant young man who’s being dragged half way round the world to face prosecution, isolation, life imprisonment for having had some marginal contact with a website as long ago as 2000.
That’s one extraordinary feature of Talha’s position.
But the second is perhaps even more exceptional. In this situation of unfairness that he’s been imprisoned in for now many years, he has nevertheless produced something that is exceptional and that’s his poetry.
Whatever preconceptions anyone might have about a man who has accusations held at him which he is unable at present to respond to, his poetry would destroy them all…
Beautiful poignant love poems but the most powerful of all to my mind which is embedded in my memory now is the poem about a prisoner and his prison guard. As he kneels scrubbing out the toilet he says where is your god now and he replies my god is with me all the time.
Talha’s poetry is quite wonderful were he or were he not in the circumstances he is in. But the circumstances he is in are so terrible that if the root to understanding comes through his poetry to prevent it, to stop it, to campaign against it, then his poetry has served an extra purpose.
Read on its own without anything it is of huge, huge value and is quite wonderful.”
Lets try and sell the whole stock of 11 books
VIDEOs of Talha’s poems:
Share Poetry Launch with AL Kennedy & Tam Dean Burn in Edinburgh :http://freetalha.org/2011/
Share Manjinder Virk reading Talha poems Audio
http://freetalha.org/2011/
Share Extradition Poem Youtube clip
https://www.youtube.com/
Share reading of Talha Poetry set – Scratched on a Wall / TV Death Row / The Eid Gift
http://www.youtube.com/
Share The Eid Gift (poem about Afghanistan)
https://www.youtube.com/
Share Theresa May Love Sonnet & Grieving (artist taxi driver – Chunky Mark McGowan)
http://youtu.be/
Share TV Death Row (written in Solitary confinement)
https://www.youtube.com/
Share This be the Answer (outside US embassy)
by Val Brown
https://www.youtube.com/
VIDEO : New writing : Otherstani poem
https://www.youtube.com/
Extradition Film – poems This be the Answer & Extraditon in 25 minute film
www.extraditionfilm.com
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Articles on Talha’s poetry:
Poetry Prize : Frances Webber
http://www.irr.org.uk/
Caged Gems – Frances Webber:
http://www.irr.org.uk/
Solitary Confinement is no place for Poet – AL Kennedy -
The Guardian
http://
Taught by the Pen:
http://
Top Award – Press release :
http://freetalha.org/2012/
Different Kinds of Sentence :
http://
FAN PAGE FOR TALHA PRISON POETRY BOOKLET :https://www.facebook.com/
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