Drunk Muse Press
Wildly good poetry books
Affiliated with The Poets' Republic magazine
OUT NOW . . . We are now taking orders for the first copies of Moussa's new collection Salted Wounds (80 pages, introductory price £10 - UK/£15 - overseas. Please visit our shop to order)
A brilliant new collection by Mohammed Moussa.Mohammed Moussa is a Palestinian poet and journalist who was one of three writers shortlisted for the 2022 international Freedom of Expression Awards presented by the Index on Censorship. Born in Gaza, Moe grew up in the Jabalia refugee camp, studied English at college, and began his career as a translator for international journalists in 2014. In 2018 he created the Gaza Poets Society as a forum for young Palestinians to share their work in English and Arabic. He was awarded the Times Richard Beeston Bursary in 2019 and completed his fellowship in London in 2022. He is now working freelance from abroad to support the Gaza Poet Society.
The war has ended
The war has ended.
Yet still I can’t sleep at night.
I stay awake until the morning sun rises
till the ghosts of war are living
in the corridors of my room, plaguing my bed
reciting over me the names of the killed
one after another, story after story, dream after dream
I see their faces in the sky –
while they are looking at what is left
of what were their homes,
still, I see them all –
each time I pass the demolished walls,
the torn clothes stained with blood
still the night keeps taking me
to the pains of the lonely survivors –
all the members of their families lost.
I cry my heart out each night.
I can’t get over this brawl;
I cry every night over the clips of the war
I’ve been watching
I cry over each unfinished story,
each dream that can’t come true,
each girl deprived of her dream of getting married,
each infant deprived of his mother’s warmth,
each mother and father deprived of the laughter
of their sons and their daughters,
and of memories; for me and those who are with me
we are not fine yet, not ended yet
even after the war has taken what it wants.
The war is not ended.
- From Salted Wounds
& OUT NOW . . .
Two new Drunk Muse books - Holly Magill's '20', a witty and incisive portrait of a young poet/call centre worker navigating her way through British society in the late 1990s; and Marcas Mac an Tuairneir's ground-breaking anthology 'Cruinneachadh', a multi-lingual travelogue featuring a range of Scottish and international poets. Please pop over to our Shop to order.
About us
Drunk Muse Press was founded in late 2020 by Neil Young and Hugh McMillan, based in Scotland, and Jessamine O' Connor in Ireland. Our purpose is to champion poetry that insists on wider attention . . . by poets with a compelling way of expressing it. We aim to publish seven-eight new titles each year, a mixture of debut publications by emerging poets and new volumes by poets who catch our eye either here in Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales, or internationally. Currently, we publish books in two formats - around 50 pages and 80 pages. We're not prescriptive as to theme, form or style and always strive to work closely with our poets. All submissions should be sent by email to drunkmusepoems@hotmail.com between March-July only (this is our reading window). Please do not send any submission via any other channels or contacts. Our publishing schedule runs from February-mid-September each year. In publishing terms, we go into hiatus from
September-February so that the editors can concentrate on their own writings. We also use this time to restock our catalogue and promote our existing line-up of poets and books. Please do not send submissions during this period.
A note on pre-orders: pre-orders are vital to helping us to cover upfront print and publication costs. Drunk Muse Press is run by poets for poets and we do this for love, not money, with the proceeds from each new book financing the next . Resources are tight, so we express our appreciation and thanks to all who pre-order our books - in doing so you are helping us to get the work of some of the best contemporary poets out there in the world.
In the Press
Dareen Tatour
'I SING FROM THE WINDOW OF EXILE' . . . SEE 'SHOP' FOR ORDERS
Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour shot to worldwide attention when she was jailed by Israeli authorities in 2016 for the 'crime' of writing a poem titled 'Resist, my people, resist them'. Her experiences were chronicled in her memoir 'My Threatening Poem', published by Drunk Muse Press. Now, 'I Sing From the Window of Exile' - published again by Drunk Muse Press - brings her first collection of poems in English translation, alongside the original Arabic texts, and offers a comprehensive view of this brave and defiant poet.
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All email enquiries should be directed to drunkmusepoems@hotmail.com
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Please note: we are not accepting new submissions for 2023
Please direct all enquiries to drunkmusepoems@hotmail.com
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