Poetry inspired by objects: telling the stories of female refugees
Channel: ChawtonHouse
Date: 2020-05-16

Lisa Andrews interviews Northern Irish poet Therese Kieran – both members of the 26 writers collective – about how Kieran’s chance discovery of a 1940s nightdress has inspired poetry around the stories of women refugees. Her first poem, written to mark the Centenary of the First World War, is about female Belgian refugees, who helped establish a lingerie factory in Monaghan, Ireland; a rich seam of enquiry that’s led to exploring parallels with modern day refugee experiences.

Therese is a writer based in Belfast. Her poetry has been published in local anthologies, including CAP, Shalom, Queens University, University of Manchester, The Incubator magazine and in 2015, she was runner up in the Poetry Ireland/Trocaire competition and subsequently invited to read her poem at an international conference on climate change in Maynooth College, Co Kildare.

Lisa began her writing career working for heat magazine before becoming the daily news editor of a film website run by Carlton TV called popcorn.co.uk. Lisa then spent 15 years working for BP’s staff magazine, working her way up to become the editor of its global quarterly shareholder magazine, with a stint as a communications manager for what became its alternative energy business. Lisa went freelance in 2016 and ran 26’s Armistice 100 project in 2018.

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