The Poetry of Dispossession

Julia Cimafiejeva (Юля Цімафеева) is a Belarusian writer and translator living in exile. She is the author of four poetry collections in Belarusian and a documentary book Minsk Diary. Her new book is Motherfield: Poems & Belarusian Protest Diary.

Mohammed El-Kurd is an award-winning writer from Jerusalem, Palestine. His work has been featured in numerous international outlets and he is currently the Palestine Correspondent for The Nation. RIFQA, his debut collection of poetry, was published in October 2021. Alongside his twin sister Muna, he was named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2021.

Hasib Hourani is a Lebanese-Palestinian writer, editor, arts worker and educator living on unceded Wurundjeri Country. Hourani is a 2020 recipient of The Wheeler Centre’s Next Chapter Scheme and is currently working on a book of poetry about suffocation and the occupation of Palestine.

Jeanine Leane is a Wiradjuri writer, poet and academic from southwest New South Wales. Her poetry, short stories, critique, and essays have been published in Hecate: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Women’s Liberation Australian Poetry Journal, Antipodes, Overland and the Sydney Review of Books. Leane was the recipient of the University of Canberra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Poetry Prize, the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Prize for Poetry and the Red Room Poetry Fellowship. In 2020, she edited Guwayu – for all times, a collection of First Nations poetry.  

Sara Saleh is a poet and activist. A campaigner for refugee rights and racial justice, she has spent the past decade working with Amnesty International and CARE International in Australia and the Middle East. She is currently finishing her debut novel and is a proud Bankstown Poetry Slam 'Slambassador'.