Batool Abu Akleen & Alice Oswald
Two poets of incredible vision and imagination, Batool Abu Akleen and Alice Oswald, read their work and lead a captivating discussion on the art of poetry.
Batool Abu Akleen, poet and translator – ‘one of Gaza’s most vivid and unstinting witnesses’ (The Guardian) – gives her first live reading in the UK following the publication of 48kg, her debut poetry collection from Tenement Press (published in a new collaborative edition with Penguin Press in September).
An author of ‘sinuous, urgent, intimately provocative poems’ (Eileen Myles), her writing has won accolades from writers Max Porter, Anne Michaels and playwright Caryl Churchill, amongst others. Abu Akleen reads from her work and her contributions to projects with Modern Poetry in Translation and Comma Press.
She is joined onstage by Alice Oswald, winner of both the TS Eliot Prize and Ted Hughes Award, whose writing has been described by Roger Robinson as having an ‘alchemical, shamanistic power.’ Both poets have worked together as mentors for the Hands Up Project and on the resulting publication From Dust We Rise: New Poetry from Palestine (2025).
Join as Abu Akleen and Oswald read from their own work and discuss this collaboration and the art of poetry.
Need to know
Reviews
‘Abu Akleen is becoming one of Gaza’s most vivid and unstinting witnesses’ The Guardian
For your visit
This event is held at the Purcell Room Southbank Centre
The Purcell Room is located in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which is open from 90 minutes before events start until they finish. It’s closed at all other times.
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