Love Poetry Hate Racism brought to you by
di-VERSE: poets against racism*
Celebrating Diversity through Poetry and the Spoken Word*
across the World
ongoing from the weekend of
17th, 18th and 19th April 2009
Love Poetry Hate Racism is an event that exists to promote cultural diversity and harmony through poetry and the spoken word.
Each
year we ask poets across the world (YOU!) to put themselves forward to
volunteer to hold events on one weekend in April. (This year because of
difficulties with the recession we are suggesting that we extend the
time period for events from the weekend of the 17,18.19th of April through to the 13th, 14th and 15th of May.)
If
you would like to be involved please let us know what kind of an event
you are organizing (all poetry events whether slam, open mic, scheduled
readings or even poetry in the park with like-minded people can be part
of the international celebration) where you will hold it and send us
your publicity material and we will list those details on this page.
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Love Poetry Hate Racism /Celebrating Diversity through Poetry and the Spoken Word
In
Belfast over the past few years there has been a substantial rise in
racist attacks on our growing ethnic minority population. Over the last
couple of weeks Polish, Lithuanian and Hungarian residents were
attacked in the Village area of South Belfast despite having absolutely
nothing to do with trouble associated with a football match played in
the area. Most recently we have seen the argument put forward that jobs
should only be available for local people and this has lead to calls
for immigrants and migrant workers to be repatriated.
In
other words the same reasons which lead us to put out a call for an
event which would bring people together to celebrate diversity and act
against the rise of racism using poetry and spoken word, are still here
at home as much as they were in 2007 when we first held Love Poetry
Hate Racism.
We
know, through travelling, that ours is not the only city where the
scourge of racism has risen sharply over the last few years, whether
against Aboriginal people and ethnic minorities (particularly Muslims)
in Australia , or the abuse suffered by people from Africa or Eastern
Europe in Ireland .
We are putting out this call to make
international the cry from writers and poets that we must combat racism
and celebrate diversity. Following on from a hugely successful
international connection in 2007 in which fifty events took place in
four continents we are now preparing for the 2009 event which will take
place from the weekend of Friday April 17th to Sunday April 19th 2009
and will continue until the weekend of May 17th.
If
you would like to be part of this global celebration of diversity we
need you to be able to get a group of people together to put on a
poetry reading, slam contest, open mic night or whatever form you most
prefer and let us know about it.
Chelley McLear – Chair of di-Verse
Gordon Hewitt – Secretary of di-Verse
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*di-Verse
(Poets against Racism) was set up in 2008 to oversee the co-ordination
and running of the Love Poetry Hate Racism events locally and
internationally.
*depending on your situation - events can be titled “Love Poetry Hate Racism” or “Celebrating diversity through poetry and the spoken