More than a poetry collection — Resilient Voices Vol. 1 is a powerful act of remembrance and resistance. Born from the margins and pulsing with truth, each poem is a survival strategy, a political statement, and an intimate offering. From mangoes to menstruation, exile to embodiment, longing to liberation — the pages bleed, bloom, ache, and remember. These are not just poems; they are documents of defiance against state violence, colonial erasure, and enforced invisibility.
Created by the queer working group Resilient Voices within International Women* Space, this collection emerged from a series of electrifying Poetry Slam Nights at OYA Bar in Berlin — a sanctuary for radical storytelling, vulnerability, and collective power.
Whether whispered in dim corners or shouted with righteous fury, the words in this volume carry ancestral memory, queer desire, sensuality, rage, and tenderness. They are declarations: We were here. We are still.
🖤 20+ texts by 14 FLINTA*S
🖤 72 pages
🖤 Rooted in artivism, resistance, and radical care
🖤 Published May 2025
The production costs were supported by ILGA Europe
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Words as Survial
This publication is more than poetry — it’s a record of resistance.
In these poems, our bodies bleed, bloom, hunger, ache, remember. They resist erasure and soften into becoming. Through metaphor, rhythm, and memory, we gather the fragments of ourselves scattered by systems designed to disappear us. Femme, queer, Brown, Black, migrant, displaced — here, in this book, we are unmistakably present.
The voices come from survival and sensuality, from exile and embodiment. They are not just artistic expressions — they are acts of rebellion against silence, (state) violence and colonial archives. Every line is a declaration: We were here. We are still.
You will find poems about mangoes and menstruation, longing and liberation. You’ll find pain and power. You’ll meet writers who are sharing a whisper of something for the first time, and those who’ve been shouting out loud for years. Together, they form a chorus.
As a queer working group within International Women* Space, Resilient Voices understands very well that storytelling is political work. With this first publication, we honor the sacred practice of documenting our truths — before they are rewritten, softened, or stolen. We name this work for what it is: defiance. Through artivism, we document rage and tenderness, grief and joy. In a time when borders are tightening, AI surveillance stalks our bodies, when voucher systems return under new names – we see you Bezahlkarte, and queer BIPoC asylum seekers are once again silenced, our voices refuse to disappear. In the face of growing fascism, fractured solidarity, and institutional neglect, our collective storytelling is a balm, a scream, a declaration.
We are grateful for every single artist and activist who contributed our Slam Poetry Nights at OYA Bar, for all those who sat in vulnerability and power or who made space for others. We want to thank all those who submitted their work for this publication. Thanks to OYA Bar for holding us, to ILGA Europe for funding us, and to the allies in the Break Isolation Group, IW*S, and beyond for amplifying us.
To those reading, may these poems find you where you are — and carry you where you need to go.
Resilient Voices
International Women* Space
May 2025