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

Work

She has been writer in residence at the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

, the Jewish Museum London and th
Separated Child Foundation
and is resident expert on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

's poetry serie
''On Form''
presented by poet Andrew McMillan. She is the English co-translator for Afghan refugee poet and

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...

journalis
Suhrab Sirat
Her poems and translations have appeared in ''

Agenda Agenda (: agendum) may refer to: Information management * Agenda (meeting), points to be discussed and acted upon, displayed as a list * Political agenda, the set of goals of an ideological group * Lotus Agenda, a DOS-based personal informatio ...

'', '' Ambit'', ''

Modern Poetry in Translation ''Modern Poetry in Translation'' is a literary magazine and publisher based in the United Kingdom. The magazine was started by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort in 1965. It was relaunched by King's College London in 1992. The college published ...

''
''The North''
''The Rialto'', ''The Poetry Review'' and''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...

''. In 2018 she was commissioned by

Bradford Literature Festival The Bradford Literature Festival (sometimes abbreviated to BLF) is a spoken and written word event that promotes literature and is held for ten days annually over June and July in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The first event was held in 201 ...

to create a poetic response to

Gustav Klimt Gustav Klimt (14 July 1862 – 6 February 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and a founding member of the Vienna Secession movement. His work helped define the Art Nouveau style in Europe. Klimt is known for his paintings, murals, sket ...

's work to mark his centenary. The resulting film poem was shown at the

Hay Festival The Hay Festival of Literature & Arts, better known as the Hay Festival (), is an annual literature festival held in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales, for 10 days from May to June. Devised by Norman, Rhoda and Peter Florence in 1988, the festival was d ...

. The same year she received an Authors' Foundation award from the

Society of Authors The Society of Authors (SoA) is a United Kingdom trade union for professional writers, illustrators and literary translators, founded in 1884 to protect the rights and further the interests of authors. Membership of the society is open to "anyon ...

to complete her first full poetry collection. Her sequence of poems about clearing her hoarding mother's home won the 2017 Primers Prize and were featured on

's ''

Woman's Hour ''Woman's Hour'' is a radio magazine programme broadcast in the United Kingdom on the BBC Light Programme, BBC Radio 2, and later BBC Radio 4. It has been on the air since 1946. History The first BBC programme for women was the programme cal ...

''. 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 The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

, The Royal Academy of Arts an
Tara Arts
In April 2022, Dautch curated the Poets for Ukraine fundraising gala which featured

Harriet Walter Dame Harriet Mary Walter is an English actress. She has received an Olivier Award and nominations for a Tony Award, five Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2011, Walter was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British E ...

Meera Syal Meera Syal FRSL (born Feroza Syal; 27 June 1961) is an English comedian, writer, playwright, singer, journalist and actress. She rose to prominence as one of the team that created '' Goodness Gracious Me'' and by portraying Sanjeev's grandmoth ...

and

Nicholas Hytner Sir Nicholas Robert Hytner ( ; born 7 May 1956) is an English theatre director, film director, and film producer. He was previously the Artistic Director of London's National Theatre. His major successes as director include ''Miss Saigon'', '' ...

, alongside British poets including

Carol Ann Duffy Dame Carol Ann Duffy (born 23 December 1955) 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 wa ...

Jackie Kay Jacqueline Margaret Kay (born 9 November 1961) is a Scottish poet, playwright, and novelist, known for her works ''Other Lovers'' (1993), ''Trumpet'' (1998) and ''Red Dust Road'' (2011). Kay has won many awards, including the Somerset Maugham A ...

Imtiaz Dharker Imtiaz Dharker (born 31 January 1954) is a Pakistani-born British poet, artist, and video film maker. She won the Queen's Gold Medal for her English poetry and was appointed Chancellor of Newcastle University from January 2020. In 2019, she ...

Hannah Lowe Hannah Lowe (born 1976) is a British writer, known for her collection of poetry ''Chick'' (2013), her family memoir ''Long Time, No See'' (2015) and her research into the historicising of the HMT ''Empire Windrush'' and postwar Caribbean migrat ...

and

Andrew Motion Sir Andrew Peter Motion (born 26 October 1952) is an English poet, novelist, and biographer, who was Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009. During the period of his laureateship, Motion founded the Poetry Archive, an online resource of poems and a ...

, showcasing work by Ukrainian poets from the frontline and the

diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of birth, place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently resi ...

. One of Dautch's frequent collaborators is actress

Juliet Stevenson Juliet Anne Virginia Stevenson, (born 30 October 1956) is an English actress of stage and screen. She is known for her role in the film '' Truly, Madly, Deeply'' (1991), for which she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Le ...

. The two have worked together on projects including the centenary celebrations for

Rosalind Franklin Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 192016 April 1958) was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer. Her work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), viruses, coal ...

, an event marking the discovery of a new short story by

Nobel Laureate The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...

Isaac Bashevis Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer (; 1903 – July 24, 1991) was a Poland, Polish-born Jews, Jewish novelist, short-story writer, memoirist, essayist, and translator in the United States. Some of his works were adapted for the theater. He wrote and publish ...

, and a number of

poetry programsme. She is well known in the Jewish community, where she lectures internationally on Jewish arts and culture. In 2020 she was appointed Executive Director of ''

Jewish Renaissance ''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''. Scope and con ...

'' magazine. Dautch also teaches Jewish Culture and

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

Studies at the

University of Roehampton The University of Roehampton, London, formerly Roehampton Institute of Higher Education, is a public university in the United Kingdom, situated on three major sites in Roehampton, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. The University traces its r ...

and lectures at the

London School of Jewish Studies The London School of Jewish Studies (commonly known as LSJS, originally founded as Jews' College) is a London-based organisation providing adult educational courses and teacher training to the wider Jewish community. Many leading figures in Brit ...

and

JW3 JW3, also known as Jewish Community Centre London, is an arts, culture and entertainment venue, an educational facility and a social and community hub in north London. It is located at 341–351 Finchley Road, London, and opened on 29 Septembe ...

. On her popula
Table Manners
podcast, singer

Jessie Ware Jessica Lois Ware (born 15 October 1984) is an English singer and songwriter. She came to prominence following the release of her debut studio album, '' Devotion'' (2012), which peaked at number five on the UK Albums Chart and produced the sing ...

discussed her studies with Dautch, who is preparing her for her

Bat Mitzvah A ''bar mitzvah'' () or ''bat mitzvah'' () is a coming of age ritual in Judaism. According to Jewish law, before children reach a certain age, the parents are responsible for their child's actions. Once Jewish children reach that age, they a ...

#NeverAgainIsNow

On 19 June 2018, Dautch retweeted a video of detention facilities for refugee children in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

with the hashtag #NeverAgainIsNow, which went viral. Her tweet was one of the first uses of this

hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag operator that is prefaced by the hash symbol, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services–especially Twitter and Tumblr–as a form of user-generated tagging that enable ...

as a rallying cry and commentary on parallels between American President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

's immigration policies and the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

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. During a BBC Radio 4 interview, Dautch explained that her intention was not to diminish the atrocities of the

, 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.

References

External links

Official website

Between Two Worlds: Poetry & Translation – Aviva Dautch reading at Sounds, British Library (audio), 27 March 2014

Two poems by Aviva Dautch, ''And Other Poems'', 7 March 2014
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dautch, Aviva 1978 births Living people 20th-century British Jews 20th-century English poets 20th-century English women writers 21st-century English people 21st-century English poets 21st-century English women Academics of the London School of Jewish Studies Academics of the University of Roehampton Alumni of Royal Holloway, University of London British magazine publishers (people) British women curators English curators Jewish English writers 21st-century English translators English women poets Jewish poets Jewish translators Jewish women writers People from Salford