The 2024 Hands up Project poetry competition
To introduce our new competition, here’s a post by Alice and Peter Oswald
A lot has happened since our last poetry competition. Poets have been killed, but poetry is not dead, it is alive and well in Gaza and everywhere else. Poets under siege and bombardment speak and write their poems to those outside. Those who have escaped speak poetry about their experiences. Heart speaks to heart across the world, no one is outside this catastrophe.
We have been holding online sessions where poets from different countries have shared their work; we have been astonished, impressed, moved to tears, and continue to be so. And so it seems time for another competition, to celebrate the sensitivity, intelligence and resilience of the poetry that continues to be written.
For the last Hands Up Project poetry competition, in 2023, poets were asked to respond to one or other of two paintings – one by Malak Mattar and one by Leyla el Hej Abed. That competition bore fruit in the form of the extremely popular book Moon Tell me Truth, which forms the basis of an exhibition currently touring the UK and Ireland. Time after time the poems have been spoken at exhibition openings and online to people all over the world, so that even the voices of the dead are not silenced.
This time we have chosen two paintings again. The first is by Leyla. It is of the beach at Gaza. Leyla was helped by a crowdfunder to leave Gaza a few months ago. She left two days before the Rafah crossing was closed, and is now studying at Debrecen University in Hungary. How she misses the sea! You will see from the painting how much it means to her – as it does to all the people of Gaza. You can see, in the painting, the tents of the people who have lost their homes. Her own family was there for a while.
The second painting is by a 21 year old artist who is still in Gaza - Nada Anwar Essa Rajab. Nada is currently working on the artwork for a brand new Hands up Project publication made entirely in Gaza - Stories Reborn - so we decided to ask her to contribute something for our competition too.
So please respond to either (or both) of the paintings with your poetry, and decorate your handwritten poems with drawings or designs of your own. Please be under 18. And remember, the painting is meant to set free your imagination, not tie it down. You can make your connection to the painting in the most surprising ways. The deadline for submissions is Friday 6th December 2024.
So lose yourselves in the paintings , and then send us a decorated handwritten poem. Good luck and thank you for entering!
Please note - the poetry sessions will resume next Sunday, November 3rd, at 2pm Palestine time. We will have four zoom sessions, one each Sunday, on writing poems. And after the competition, in January, we will have four sessions on speaking poems. Please send an email to info@handsupproject.org if you’d like take part in the poetry sessions. This is also the address to send your entries for the competition to.
After the competition, in January, we will have four zoom sessions on speaking poems, culminating in an online performance at the end of January. Recorded poems will be available on the Hands Up youtube channel, alongside the recorded plays"
The Rules
1) The competition is open to young people aged 17 years or younger anywhere is the world .
2) The competition is not open to native speakers of English
3) The poem must be hand written and may be decorated in any way desired.
4) The poem must be a maximum of 50 words long.
5) To qualify a photo of the poem needs to be sent to info@handsupproject.org by midnight Palestine time on Friday 6th December.
Good luck everyone!