Poet’s new collection focusses on refugee crisis

A POETRY collection by Cork-based poet Anton Floyd will be launched in Nano Nagle Place next week on Culture Night. Depositions, which is published by Doire Press, addresses the topic of the worldwide refugee crisis and population displacement.

Floyd was born in Cairo and raised in Cyprus, where he lived through the island’s struggle for independence. Educated in Ireland, he studied English at Trinity College and continued his postgraduate studies at University College Cork.

He has previously had poems published in The Stony Thursday Book, Ghent Review, Live Encounters, The Shot Glass Journal, Crannog, Inisfail Arts Journal, Skylight 47, Contemporary Haibun on Line, Visual Verse and haiku in Shamrock, Seashores and tinywords.

He received the 2019 Literary Award by the Dazzling Spark Arts Foundation in Scotland and his debut poetry collection, Falling Into Place, was published by Revival Press in 2018.

Now living in West Cork, he has recently retired after many years teaching and working with Educate Together in Cork city.

“The poems [for Depositions] started coming in 2014 and a section prompted by the war in Ukraine has been added at John Walsh’s editorial advice,” Floyd said. 

“The selections from the central part of the collection, consisting of 120 haiku-like tercets, has been translated into 20 languages.

“I have drawn on my own experiences of displacement during the Cypriot War of Independence and the intercommunal strife that followed (1955-1970), as well as my family history of displacement during the pogroms of the Maronite community in the Mount Lebanon region in the 1860s.

“I returned to the island with my wife and infant son and lived in Cyprus during the 1980s and early 1990s. It was a country traumatised by the Turkish invasion. It still is. 

"As well as experiencing serious internal population displacement, the country hosted Lebanese and Palestinian refugees from regional conflicts. Cyprus has a sizeable Armenian community with a long memory of genocide.”

The poet also drew on the experiences of others now living in Cork.

“I have also consulted extensively with asylum-seekers here,” he said. “Most of the translators have similarly had some experience of displacement or exile.

“As a family some 20 years ago here in Cork we acted in loco parentis to two Congalese refugee boys who are now confirmed members of the family. I dedicate the collection to them.

“All these factors in one way or another have found expression in the poems.”

All proceeds from the sales of his collection will go to support the work of the UN Refugee Agency.

“Due to the nature of the topic, I felt it appropriate that all proceeds from sales of the collection should be donated to the agency refugee fund of UNHCR - Ireland,” Floyd said. 

“They and Doire Press are fully supportive of the project, as is the management at Nano Nagle Place, which also serves as the Migrant Centre for Cork.

“Together we have devised a programme for Culture Night that involves live music, a short film made by NUIG and the poetry.”

The launch event includes readings, a film and a welcome from the UNHCR and music from The Lost Gecko, Gavin Loesberg and Orla Smith-Loesberg, Kiruu - find out more and register for the free event at nanonagleplace.ie.