Aviva Dautch

Last updated

Aviva Dautch
Born(1978-05-05)5 May 1978
Salford, England
NationalityBritish
Occupation(s)Poet, academic, curator and magazine publisher
Website https://www.avivadautch.com/

Aviva Dautch (born 5 May 1978) is a British poet, academic, curator and magazine publisher, who is of Eastern European Jewish ancestry. [1]

Contents

Work

She has been writer in residence at the British Museum, [2] the Jewish Museum London and the Separated Child Foundation and is resident expert on BBC Radio 4's poetry series On Form presented by poet Andrew McMillan. She is the English co-translator for Afghan refugee poet and BBC World Service journalist Suhrab Sirat.

Her poems and translations have appeared in Agenda , Ambit , Modern Poetry in Translation , The North, The Rialto, The Poetry Review and The Spectator . [3] In 2018 she was commissioned by Bradford Literature Festival to create a poetic response to Gustav Klimt's work to mark his centenary. The resulting film poem was shown at the Hay Festival. [4] The same year she received an Authors' Foundation award from the Society of Authors to complete her first full poetry collection. [5]

Her sequence of poems about clearing her hoarding mother's home won the 2017 Primers Prize [6] and were featured on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour . [7] During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, Radio 4 made an extended half-hour programme We Sigh for Houses , in which she explored what it means to be the child of a hoarder and how her poetry seeks to make order and beauty from the chaos in which she grew up.

She has written articles, and curated exhibitions and events for arts organisations including the Bethlem Museum of the Mind, The British Library, [8] [9] [10] The Royal Academy of Arts and Tara Arts. In April 2022, Dautch curated the Poets for Ukraine fundraising gala which featured Harriet Walter, Meera Syal and Nicholas Hytner, alongside British poets including Carol Ann Duffy, Jackie Kay, Imtiaz Dharker, Hannah Lowe and Andrew Motion, showcasing work by Ukrainian poets from the frontline and the diaspora. [11]

One of Dautch's frequent collaborators is actress Juliet Stevenson. The two have worked together on projects including the centenary celebrations for Rosalind Franklin, [12] an event marking the discovery of a new short story by Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, [13] and a number of BBC Radio 4 poetry programsme. [14] [15]

She is well known in the Jewish community, where she lectures internationally on Jewish arts and culture. [16] In 2020 she was appointed Executive Director of Jewish Renaissance magazine. [17] Dautch also teaches Jewish Culture and Holocaust Studies at the University of Roehampton [1] and lectures at the London School of Jewish Studies and JW3. [18] [19] On her popular Table Manners podcast, singer Jessie Ware discussed her studies with Dautch, who is preparing her for her Bat Mitzvah. [20] [21]

#NeverAgainIsNow

On 19 June 2018, Dautch retweeted a video of detention facilities for refugee children in the United States with the hashtag #NeverAgainIsNow, which went viral. [22] Her tweet was one of the first uses of this hashtag as a rallying cry and commentary on parallels between American President Donald Trump's immigration policies and the Nazi era. Since then, it has been used widely by Jewish campaigning groups across America protesting against migrant detention and the separation of children from their families. [23] [24] [25] During a BBC Radio 4 interview, [26] Dautch explained that her intention was not to diminish the atrocities of the Holocaust, or to suggest that Trump had an explicit genocidal agenda, but as a call to social action and to draw attention to research about the stages through which a climate is created that will allow genocide or atrocity to take place. These include discrimination, dehumanisation and classification and separation of the other both physically and through language. [27]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Ann Duffy</span> Scottish poet and playwright (born 1955)

Dame Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, and her term expired in 2019. She was the first female poet, the first Scottish-born poet and the first openly lesbian poet to hold the Poet Laureate position.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Armitage</span> English poet (born 1963)

Simon Robert Armitage is an English poet, playwright, musician and novelist. He was appointed Poet Laureate on 10 May 2019. He is professor of poetry at the University of Leeds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pam Ayres</span> British poet, songwriter and presenter (born 1947)

Pamela Ayres MBE is a British poet, comedian, songwriter and presenter of radio and television programmes. Her 1975 appearance on the television talent show Opportunity Knocks led to appearances on other TV and radio shows, a one-woman touring stage show and performing before The Queen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patience Agbabi</span> British poet and performer (born 1965)

Patience Agbabi FRSL is a British poet and performer who emphasizes the spoken word. Although her poetry hits hard in addressing contemporary themes, it often makes use of formal constraints, including traditional poetic forms. She has described herself as "bicultural" and bisexual. Issues of racial and gender identity feature in her poetry. She is celebrated "for paying equal homage to literature and performance" and for work that "moves fluidly and nimbly between cultures, dialects, voices; between page and stage." In 2017, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Padel</span> British poet, novelist and non-fiction author

Ruth Sophia Padel FRSL FZS is a British poet, novelist and non-fiction author, known for her poetic explorations of migration, both animal and human, and her involvement with classical music, wildlife conservation and Greece, ancient and modern. She is Trustee for conservation charity New Networks for Nature, has served on the board of the Zoological Society of London and was Professor of Poetry at King's College London from 2013 to 2022.

Lorna Gaye Goodison CD is a Jamaican poet, essayist and memoirist, a leading West Indian writer, whose career spans four decades. She is now Professor Emerita, English Language and Literature/Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan, previously serving as the Lemuel A. Johnson Professor of English and African and Afroamerican Studies. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Jamaica in 2017, serving in the role until 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elaine Feinstein</span> English poet and writer (1930–2019)

Elaine Feinstein FRSL was an English poet, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, biographer and translator. She joined the Council of the Royal Society of Literature in 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Copus</span> British poet, biographer and childrens writer

Julia Copus FRSL is a British poet, biographer and children's writer.

Michelene Dinah Wandor, known from 1963 to at least 1979 as Michelene Victor, is an English playwright, critic, broadcaster, poet, lecturer, and musician.

<i>Jewish Renaissance</i> Quarterly British cultural magazine

Jewish Renaissance is a quarterly cultural magazine, founded in October 2001, covering Jewish culture, arts and communities in Britain and beyond. It is edited by Rebecca Taylor, a former News Editor at Time Out London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernardine Evaristo</span> British author and academic (born 1959)

Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo is a British author and academic. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other jointly won the Booker Prize in 2019 alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, making her the first Black woman to win the Booker. Evaristo is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London and President of the Royal Society of Literature, the second woman and the first black person to hold the role since it was founded in 1820.

"The Flea" is an erotic metaphysical poem by John Donne (1572–1631). The exact date of its composition is unknown, but it is probable that Donne wrote this poem in the 1590s when he was a young law student at Lincoln's Inn, before he became a respected religious figure as Dean of St Paul's Cathedral. The poem uses the conceit of a flea, which has sucked blood from the male speaker and his female lover, to serve as an extended metaphor for the relationship between them. The speaker tries to convince a lady to sleep with him, arguing that if their blood mingling in the flea is innocent, then sexual mingling would also be innocent. His argument hinges on the belief that bodily fluids mix during sexual intercourse.

The London Jewish Cultural Centre was a charitable organisation based at Ivy House, the former home of prima ballerina Anna Pavlova, in North End Road, Golders Green, London. It provided an educational programme of courses, events and leisure activities. In November 2014 it was announced that the London Jewish Cultural Centre would merge with JW3, the Jewish Community Centre London. JW3 and LJCC merged in March 2015, forming a single, enhanced organisation. The merged organisation runs a variety of events from the JW3 site on Finchley Road, London.

Gerda Kamilla Mayer was an English poet. Born to a Jewish family in Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia, she escaped to England from Prague in 1939, aged eleven, on a Kindertransport flight organised by Trevor Chadwick. Having composed her first poem, in German, at the age of four, she continued her education in Dorset and Surrey and began writing poetry in English. She has published several volumes of verse and her poems have appeared in many anthologies. She has been described by Carol Ann Duffy as a fine poet "who should be better known."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yvonne Green</span> English poet, translator, writer and barrister

Yvonne Green is an English poet, translator, writer and barrister.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heather Phillipson</span> British artist

Heather Phillipson is a British artist working in a variety of media including video, sculpture, electronic music, large-scale installations, online works, text and drawing. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2022. Her work has been presented at major venues internationally and she has received multiple awards for her artwork, videos and poetry, including the Film London Jarman Award in 2016. She is also an acclaimed poet whose writing has appeared widely online, in print and broadcast.

Malika Booker is a British writer, poet and multi-disciplinary artist, who is considered "a pioneer of the present spoken word movement" in the UK. Her writing spans different genres of storytelling, including poetry, theatre, monologue, installation and education, and her work has appeared widely in journals and anthologies. Organizations for which she has worked include Arts Council England, the BBC, British Council, Wellcome Trust, National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Arvon, and Hampton Court Palace.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikita Gill</span> Poet and writer

Nikita Gill is a British-Indian poet, playwright, writer and illustrator based in south England. She has written and curated eight volumes of poetry. Gill uses social media to engage her audience and she has over 650,000 followers on Instagram, one of the most popular poets on the platform.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Janet Sutherland</span> British poet (born 1957)

Janet Sutherland is a British poet. She has five full-length collections of poetry, published by Shearsman Books. She is a full time working poet and editor. She is a co-founder of the Needlewriters cooperative which organises quarterly poetry events in Lewes, East Sussex. Her poems are widely anthologised and are published in national and international magazines.

References

  1. 1 2 Cashdan, Liz (July 2018). "Bringing it all back home". Jewish Renaissance : 42–43.
  2. The Poetry of Witness: writing about displacement, migration and exile , retrieved 3 May 2022
  3. Sirat, Surrab (translated from Farsi by Aviva Dautch) (28 August 2021). "Wound-i-stan". The Spectator . Retrieved 2 August 2023.
  4. "Jo Brandon, Aviva Dautch, Shazea Quraishi". Hay Festival . 2018. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
  5. "Aviva Dautch". Bradford Literature Festival . Retrieved 13 September 2019.
  6. "Jewish author dubbed as 'one to watch' wins major national poetry prize". Jewish News . Retrieved 13 September 2019.
  7. "BBC Radio 4 – Woman's Hour, Migraines, 'Suffragettes in trousers', Aviva Dautch". BBC . Retrieved 13 September 2019.
  8. "British Library". www.bl.uk. Retrieved 3 May 2022.
  9. "British Library". www.bl.uk. Retrieved 3 May 2022.
  10. "British Library". www.bl.uk. Retrieved 3 May 2022.
  11. "Harriet Walter: We mustn't tar Russian people with same brush as their leaders". belfasttelegraph. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 3 May 2022.
  12. "JR July 2020 Issue Launch". Jewish Renaissance. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  13. "January Issue Launch: Isaac Bashevis Singer". Jewish Renaissance. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  14. "BBC Radio 4 - We Sigh for Houses". BBC. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  15. "BBC Radio 4 - On Form, The Sonnet". BBC. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  16. "Jewish author dubbed as 'one to watch' wins major national poetry prize". Jewish News . Retrieved 13 September 2019.
  17. "Arts expert named new head of quarterly Jewish magazine". Jewish News . 29 April 2020. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  18. "Dr Aviva Dautch, Lecturer". London School of Jewish Studies . Retrieved 9 August 2020.
  19. "Modern Jewish Literature Summer 2021". JW3. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  20. S11 Ep 9: Dan Levy , retrieved 19 May 2021
  21. Barber, Sonya. "Jessie Ware on her Jewish upbringing, doing a batmitzvah now and her new memoir!". www.jewishnews.co.uk. Retrieved 3 May 2022.
  22. Dautch, Dr Aviva (19 June 2018). "I've seen several tweets comparing this to Nazis / The Holocaust and saying things like "this is how it begins". I teach Holocaust Literature so let me be clear – this ISN'T how it began. This is already several stages along the way.#NeverAgainIsNow". @avivadautch. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
  23. Conley, Julia (1 July 2019). "#NeverAgainIsNow: 36 Arrested As Hundreds of Jewish Protesters Block Road to Migrant Detention Center". Common Dreams. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
  24. Caplan, Michaela (11 July 2019). "Never Again Is Now". Tikkun . Retrieved 13 September 2019.
  25. Kaplan Sommer, Allison (5 July 2019). "For Progressive Jewish American Activists, 'Never Again Is Now' – and Israel Is Yesterday's News". Haaretz . Retrieved 13 September 2019.
  26. "Woman's Hour – Migraines, 'Suffragettes in trousers', Aviva Dautch". BBC Sounds . 6 September 2019. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
  27. "The ten stages of genocide". Holocaust Memorial Day Trust . Retrieved 13 September 2019.