How great that you’ll be looking at my poem. “You have to understand, no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land“: These lines offers powerful message in the wake of the widely-publicized photo of 3-year old boy’s Aylan body, washed upon the shores of Turkey. Bilston makes his readers to re-think their prejudice against refugees who are fleeing conflict and persecution. Old passports can’t do that, my dear, old passports can’t do that. Later his death sentence was repealed following worldwide protests. They are blinded with their pain of losing their homes and the only life they had ever known. He was re-sentenced to eight years and 800 lashes. Brian Bilston’s first collection of poetry – You Caught the Last Bus Home – will be published with Unbound. Tired and seemingly broken, he drops to his honchos near a food vendor who is selling noodles. Auden showed what it feels like to be made homeless and an outcast. Share our food (now read from bottom to top). It explores the grief in his father’s death “of sorrow“ and the isolation of imprisonment. Allegretti, Aubrey. Our smuggler, an Iraqi, suggested we take turns carrying her. “Refugees are persons fleeing armed conflict or persecution. Layabouts and loungers Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours. The soldiers raped the Nigerian woman in the room next door. So do not tell me The Bulgarian army caught us at the barbed wire and beat us up. Their situation is often so perilous and intolerable that they cross national borders to seek safety in nearby countries, and thus become internationally recognized as “refugees“ with access to assistance from States, UNHCR, and other organizations. One of the first poems that Fayadh wrote when sentenced to prison is “Tense Times”. Poems on Home, Exile, Journeys, War and Humanity.“, Link to document. We will certainly list the book details. filling our ancestors with words of love: let salt winds punch our faces and your coast-guards, all the lovely words your fathers preached to ours, One can assume that Auden had chosen the title (“Refugee Blues”) to link it to the protest and subculture of American Blacks, who had developed this musical form in Southern USA. thanks! I am a year 6 teacher in Wales and we plan on using this in our literacy lessons this week as we are focussing on refugees. Love your poem, “Refugees” and the reverse technique! The vassals of this “odious god” are: “(r)ace, real estate, religion, sectarianism or supremacy“. Notwithstanding it feels good to have an open ear for these challenges — despite all reservations. I’d be delighted for you to use the poem in this context. They all have a blanket on their heads and are carrying iron cauldrons. Sharp, Christopher. The encounter, she says, opened her eyes to the harsh reality of living as an undocumented refugee in Europe: “I wrote the poem for them, for my family and for anyone who has experienced or lived around grief and trauma in that way.”. Some of the hype around Bilston concerns the anonymity he cultivates online. They strip away your humanity in debates that are clever and sharp as knives. All it takes is a mad leader The Forward Arts Foundation is a charity that enables all to enjoy, discover and share poetry. I come from a musical place 5. Welcome here, They cannot But they weren’t German Jews, my dear, but they weren’t German Jews. describing the terror of the combat zones and the futility of war. (Contents) An article in The Guardian provides some background. A war poet is usually defined as a poet who participated in a war and writes about his experiences. let him slap your left cheek too! Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. Yes, please feel free to use my poem. (UNHCR), About Ashraf Fayadh One point is without question: If you don’t want mafias, open the borders. unless the water is safer than the land, I want to go home, Auden’s poem — although written in 1939 and with a direct reference to the situation of Nazi Germany before World War II — has taken a timeless quality due to the commonality of its subject. Read the whole poem om Benjamin Zephaniah’s Web site. ), however, gives the story a wider meaning. There are references to “a sunny, sandy place” “where girls cannot go to school” and “even young boys must grow beards”: I come from a beautiful place Zephaniah was born and raised in the Handsworth district of Birmingham, which he called the “Jamaican capital of Europe“. The poem Responses There was a fat young Nigerian woman with us and she found it hard to walk. “Just a Nobody” was translated by the author and Chris Beckett. The world can be looked at another way run away from me now The gaunt yet rapacious creature with an insatiable appetite, Under the barbed wire and scrutiny of those who weren’t looking. when you see the whole city running as well Continue to explore the world of Auden’s poetry with our analysis of his ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’ , his short poem ‘Epitaph on a Tyrant’ , and our thoughts on his most famous poem, ‘Funeral Blues’ . Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me. In 2009, the young Nairobi-born, London-raised writer had spent time with a group of young refugees who had fled their troubled homelands including Somalia, Eritrea, Congo and Sudan. Now, their children’s children, inheriting the words their fathers left behind, are braving the seas in leaky boats: let salt winds punch our faces and your coast-guards They are forced to take refuge in an unknown environment to have any chance of survival, to get some food in their stomachs and a roof over their heads. 09/05/2016. A well known aphorism, going back to the British poet Percy Byssche Shelley, wants it that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world“ (In Defense of Poetry). The poet represents himself as a refugee … He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me. Between us we carried the woman through a cold rainy night in the mud of the woods and fields. In contrast to reality photos which are often intrusive, this graphic comes closer to an illustration of the idea Alemu Tebeje focuses on in his poem. The unwelcome strangers are flooding the extramural camps and desperate for food and work. Should life have dealt a different hand Richards, Victoria. About Hama Tuma The The following selection of poems brings together poetry written by and about refugees on a broad spectrum of topics: the experience of losing home, losing family and losing an identity in a search for safety. Also serving long sentences in violation of their right to freedom of expression are the writers Raif Badawi and Waleed Abu Al-Khair. Love your poem, “Refugees” and the reverse technique! The poem is at its best, narrator, who is later revealed to be a German Jew, has a conversation with a person dear to him. With bombs up their sleeves ame and photo of “Brian Bilston“ are pseudonyms. Responses Between us we carried the woman through a cold rainy night in the mud of the woods and fields. “Shame on the world!“ Burhan Akman tweeted from Turkey, adding in another post, “I see human but no humanity.“, About Alemu Tebeje There you are told what to believe The adjective ‘refugee’ has different meanings in this context. The Bulgarian army caught us at the barbed wire and beat us up. Collage: photo of Hassam Blasim (image source), a handwritten notice which Shamshaid Jutt, a refugee from Pakistan, jotted down while in detention (image source) and lines from Blasim’s poem “A Paradise that is Europe”. “Viewpoint: ‘Refugee’ or ‘migrant’ – Which is right?”, Article information The poem is at its best when set to music and performed. Seeing his plight, an unassuming man walks up to him and enquires about his condition. Their lives are independent of politicians and wars. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Chancers and scroungers During the last 10 years, refugees and asylum seekers have been demonised as scroungers, malingerers, people stealing “our” jobs. 7. Develops a tolerance for intolerance They are not Besides, one who flees from danger, and is in a secure and protective circle is also called a ‘refugee’. The people, desperate and anxious, used up their seeds as a means for satisfying their hunger pangs. Auden was born in York in 1907. These are people for whom denial of asylum has potentially deadly consequences”. Bausells, Marta and Maeve Shearlaw. The narrator looks at war as a quasi mythological creature, a “gaunt, yet rapacious” creature, an “odious god“, domineering, but not indomitable. all the lovely words your fathers preached to ours. I’d be delighted for you to use the poem in this context. Until there is nothing left. Standing at the end of the queue … : Ashraf Fayadh, “What It Means Being a Refugee” Collage: photo of Ashraf Fayadh (image source). With bombs up their sleeves In the fallout of such catastrophe, they are forced to trudge forlornly towards the alien contours of the capital city and its very different life. “Brian Bilston’s ‘Refugee’ Poem Moves Thousands With Brilliant Hidden Message.“ The Huffington Post March 24, 2016. I’ll tell you a short personal story. The group gave a warm welcome to Shire in their makeshift home at the abandoned Somali Embassy in Rome describing the conditions as cold and cramped. Standing is something your grandfather did, without knowing the reason. nfmazza@fsu.edu, ( https://www.routledge.com/Poetry-Therapy-Theory-and-Practice-2nd-Edition/Mazza/p/book/9781138812574 ), (https://www.routledge.com/Expressive-Therapies/Mazza/p/book/9781138848092 ), Thanks for getting in touch, Nick. 9. These haggard faces could belong to you or me Born in 1973 he grew up in a Shiite Muslim household in Kirkuk and Baghdad with nine siblings, an illiterate mother, and a father in the military, who died of a stroke when Blasim was sixteen. Benjamin Zephaniah is not a refugee in the strict sense, what readers who can connect with his poem might resent. In “Conversations about home (at the deportation centre)” from Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth (2011) Shire comments on the fictional self that – as narrator of her poems – talks to her audiences: They ask me how did you get here? Born in Addis Ababa, he studied Law in Addis Ababa University and became an advocate for democracy and justice. There was a fat young Nigerian woman with us and she found it hard to walk. Standing at the end of the queue … : Ashraf Fayadh, “What It Means Being a Refugee”, Collage: photo of Ashraf Fayadh (image source). In the end the question remains: Is there a point in hoping against hope? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Zephaniah He is the son of a Barbadian postman and a Jamaican nurse. (Read the story online) For more information on Hama Tuma you might want to go to his Website. (Allegretti) “Brian Bilston is a laureate for our fractured times, a wordsmith who cares deeply about the impact his language makes as it dances before our eyes” (Ian McMillan.) Deine E-Mail-Adresse wird nicht veröffentlicht. Knowing Hassam Blasim’s personal history the poem reads as a cynical comment. He explicated that his people have become starved and homeless as their lands suffered from massive floods on account of river inundation. If you just give my name, followed by the book in which it was first published that should do it: ie Brian Bilston, from ‘You Took the Last Bus Home’. They seemed to be enveloped in a stupor of grief-stricken numbness. The poem Elaine M. Mullen published various books, e.g. just a man in tattered clothes, Will we, the peoples of Europe, have sufficient air for them to breathe? „Interview with Hassan Blasim.” Guernica May 1, 2014. (see her latest tweets @GreenOgress). In 1999 he left Iraq, illegally crossed the border into Iran and from there began a three-and-a-half year clandestine journey across Turkey and Bulgaria, ending up in Finland’s third-largest city Tampere in 2004. I knew a little about the difficulties, just bits of news in the media. http://www.the-world-speaks-english.com/?p=2651. … Image: Warsan Shire (image by Giacomo Brini, 2010) For more photos see here, here or here. The present engulfs you. Elaine M. Mullen’s “War“ is not necessarily the poem you would expect in a showcase of war poetry. In the village churchyard there grows an old yew. Re-Sentenced to eight years and 800 lashes for Ashraf Fayadh ” the Gad about February... More creases to the United Kingdom at the end of the depravity the... 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