“People say that writers are pretty powerless: we don’t have an army, we don’t have a bureaucracy. But if that were true, then why would writers be arrested?…

Because the …word is powerful.”

— John Ralston Saul

Courage Day/ Day of the Imprisoned Writer 2022

An evening of solidarity with imprisoned writers

• Where: Lady Goodfellow Chapel
• (University of Waikato)
• When: 16 November 2022, 7pm
• What: Waikato writers read from the works of imprisoned writers and from their own works.
• Entry by koha

Background:

Every night we see the images of destruction in the Ukraine and the struggle of women in Iran for their Human Rights. We feel helpless, we are spectators of tragic and revolutionary events that we cannot influence. And yet there is something we can do: We can lend our voice to the works of oppressed

and imprisoned poets and to human rights advocates. And we can support their cause with protests and petitions.

On November 16th we meet to exchange poems and short prose

on the subject of freedom and oppression. We will circulate some petitions

for the release of imprisoned poets.

Supported by Hamilton writer group Ampersand, writers of the

NZSA Waikato/Waikato Writers group and Earthdiverse

 [Lady Goodfellow Chapel, UoW, Gate One Knighton Rd, 3216]