Scottish PEN member Peter Clive submitted the following poems in reply to our recent post, Scottish poets respond to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. We encourage further poetic and literary submissions as our organisation continues to raise awareness of the situation and campaign for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.

On Wednesday 14 February 2024, fifteen UK independent bookshops will hold events to raise money for the PEN Emergency Fund to provide support ringfenced for writers at risk who are in and from Palestine.

Every year on 27 January the UK marks the horrific organised slaughter perpetrated in Europe in the 1930s and 40s and in many other parts of the world since then.

Scottish PEN member and Burns scholar Gerard Carruthers speaks on the compassion and enduring appeal of Scotland’s national poet.

Chair of the Scottish PEN Writers at Risk Committee, Lizzie Eldridge, spoke at two of the recent protests in Glasgow.

A number of our members and other Scottish poets have written poems in response to the current conflict, and have kindly given permission for them to be shared here. Scottish PEN invites further poetic and literary responses to the poems.

The Writers for Peace Committee of PEN International is seeking articles for inclusion in its March 2024 newsletter.

Scottish PEN must yet again condemn the targeted killing of journalists by the Israeli army in its continuing attacks on Gaza. The two young men who died in these latest killings were Hamza Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya, whose vehicle was targeted by a missile strike on 7 January as they were trying to interview civilians displaced by previous bombings.