The current Poet Laureate for Wexford, Sasha Terfous is one of the most important figures in Ireland’s spoken word community. With her knowledge, eloquence and passion, she aims to narrate life’s experiences and encourage her audience to reflect upon themselves and their decisions. Using her work as a form of activism, her poetry draws attention to the voices that should be heard and issues that need to be addressed – be it the racism and homophobia of her youth in a small rural town or larger issues such as climate change and the Black Lives Matter movement.
The past two years have found her undertaking commissions for the likes of NUI Galway and the Female Tribes project, speaking at the launch of the Centre for Environmental Justice alongside Mary Robinson, performing for the online edition of Bloomsday with Aidan Gillen, David Norris and Glen Hansard, appearing as part of Word Up Collective’s curations for Music Town and Dublin Quays Festival, touring with Wooden Elephant on their German performances of Beyoncé’s Lemonade album and collaborating with the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation in New York and Poetry Ireland on a video interpretation of her piece ‘Identity’ - the audio of which was made a track of the week on RTE 2FM. 2022 began with a special performance at Trad Fest Temple Bar curated by festival patron Stephen Rea, followed by a debut performance in London for International Women’s Day and a moving commission for World Ovarian Cancer Day.
Continuing to draw inspiration from her own personal experiences and that of the communities around her, Sasha will publish her first collection of work in 2024.
