Acclaimed playwright Peter Oswald embarked on a 150 mile pilgrimage for Palestine on 18th March. Leaving Bristol at the start, Peter was presented with a key by Feda Shahien of The Red Line and The Women in Black from Bournemouth. It is the key to the house in Palestine of Feda's grandmother, from which she was evicted by the Israelis. Peter will carry the key to Parliament Square in London. There he will hand it over to a Palestinian girl dressed in traditional Palestinian clothing.
Pilgrim Peter is carrying a 'tear' made of Bristol blue glass, to be woven into a dress – a symbolic 'weave from tears the dress of impossible' – in London. At exhibitions all over the country people have woven 'tears' of various materials into the dress. Over halfway there and Peter’s already raised over £10,000 for the Hands Up Project, a charity that’s been working with Palestinian schools in Gaza and the Israeli occupied West Bank.
This has been achieved at sell-out events in towns all along the route to London.
In Bath local organiser Dionne McCulloch read out a poem specially written for the event by celebrated writer Max Porter. Also speaking poetry at this event and in Bradford on Avon was former Oxford Professor of Poetry Alice Oswald.
In Bradford-on-Avon Peter spoke to local children at an exhibition of illustrated poems by children from Gaza. Carrying the flag of Palestine, the Pilgrim for Palestine attracted some vitriol but overwhelmingly the response has been supportive. The “pilgrimage” has been covered by the global Al Jazeera Arab TV channel, and the Independent and London Evening Standard have featured articles about the pilgrimage.
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