Poetry as Protest was an invitation to poets at StAnza Poetry Festival 2025 – themed ‘how we feel’ – to contribute a protest poem of their own, and to suggest one from another poet, past or present.
With contributions from Tom Branfoot, Jackie Kay, Sasha Dugdale, Nuala Watt, Lisa Fannen, Imtiaz Dharker. Ahmed Miqdad, Kim Hyesoon, Don Mee Choi, Amy Acre, Caroline Bird, Alice Willitts, JLM Morton, Charlotte van der Broek, Tim Tim Cheng, Harry Josephine Giles, Julie Laing. And readings at the Poetry as Protest event 16.3.2025 also from Hannah Copley, CD Boyland and Joelle Taylor.
It is a fundraiser for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP).
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The zine gathers together those voices who name and have named what is unacceptable, who stop us in our tracks, who teach us, who question, who call to action and account; orienting to deep connection, agency and justice. It joins with the many voices in the act of bearing witness, of illuminating, of refusing, of demanding better, of solidarity that poetry has always been and continues to be.
The invitation for contributions asked for poems that address racial justice, Indigenous struggles, Palestine, feminist, queer and trans solidarity, disability justice, environmental concerns, anti-capitalism, anti-austerity, class, social justice and anything else aligned that poets felt called to speak to. In this zine we feel how this particular constellation of poems sit alongside each other, in dialogue, across time and space.
Poetry as Protest was collated by Lisa Fannen. Design by Emma Sweeney. Huge thanks to everyone who contributed, and thanks to StAnza, literary agents who relayed messages between this project and poets they represent, Lighthouse Books, Glasgow Zine Library and Forest Publications for support and collaboration along the way and for subsidising printing costs which meant Poetry as Protest could come together.