From the website of the Byre Theatre: ‘As the war in Gaza continues, as the scale of the violence and suffering surpasses our understanding, Allen-Paisant considers how poetry, in its formalising of grief and its deployment in funerary rites, can bring us closer to the truth, to bringing the incomprehensible into a shape we can begin to understand. Don’t miss this powerful exploration of one of poetry’s most fundamental social and political functions.’ My lecture was entitled ‘All people must be able to write about the birds: Poetry and the sensorium of catastrophe’. The title alludes to Palestinian poet Marwan Markhoul’s oft-quoted poem as well as Dionne Brand’s forthcoming nonfiction book. You can watch the lecture here.