{"id":8063,"date":"2017-01-30T22:17:54","date_gmt":"2017-01-31T03:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=8063"},"modified":"2017-02-01T12:53:19","modified_gmt":"2017-02-01T17:53:19","slug":"read-poems-from-the-7-countries-affected-by-trumps-immigration-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/read-poems-from-the-7-countries-affected-by-trumps-immigration-ban","title":{"rendered":"Read poems from the 7 countries affected by Trump\u2019s immigration ban"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A

A young girl dances with an American flag while women pray behind her during a protest against the temporary travel ban, at Dallas\/Fort Worth International Airport. Credit: REUTERS\/Laura Buckman<\/p><\/div>\n

On Monday, Tehran-born poet Kaveh Akbar began tweeting out poetry written by poets from the seven countries \u2014 Iran, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, and Syria \u2014 impacted by President Donald Trump\u2019s executive order that temporarily bans immigrants<\/span><\/a> from those countries.<\/p>\n

The poetry Akbar shared includes work from Khaled Mattawa<\/span><\/a>, a Libyan poet born in Benghazi who emigrated to the U.S. as a teenager, Ladan Osman<\/span><\/a>, who was born in Somalia and raised in Columbus, Ohio, and Safia Elhillo<\/span><\/a>, a poet born in the U.S. to Sudanese parents, but who didn\u2019t move to the U.S. until the year 2000.<\/p>\n

Akbar said he was inspired to tweet Monday morning while\u00a0reading the poetry of Persian poet Majid Naficy,\u00a0and wondering what his life would be like without having read Naficy\u2019s work. Naficy, who was born and raised in Iran, fled to the U.S.<\/span><\/a> after Ayatollah Khomeini<\/span><\/a> established theocratic rule in Iran in 1979, an experience that appears in Naficy\u2019s poetry. His poem, \u201cAllowance,\u201d begins with the lines: \u201cWhen creeping out of his tight skin \/ He suffers pain \/ And the world becomes small for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cI was struck by how I was the very, very lucky beneficiary of this sort of gorgeousness and beauty,\u201d Akbar said. \u201cAnd how my person would be diminished from a lack of access to these sort of voices.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kaveh

Kaveh Akbar. Credit: B. A. Van Sise<\/p><\/div>\n

Akbar often shares poets from a range of backgrounds on his Twitter account and at Divedapper<\/span><\/a>, a contemporary poetry site he founded and edits. He said he has always felt compelled to share the poetry he loves with others.<\/p>\n

This seemed particularly important to him on Monday, after a weekend of protests<\/span><\/a> over the ban. He hoped that in sharing the poetry it would channel the rage people felt \u201ctoward a kind of love, and gratefulness\u201d for that writing, he said.<\/p>\n

The ban also has personal resonance for Akbar, who was born in Tehran and moved to the U.S. when he was two and a half years old. Though English is his primary spoken language, he said \u201cthere is a part of Iran that is hardwired into me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Akbar, who now teaches poetry in Florida, and whose debut full-length collection<\/span><\/a> is coming out this Fall, sometimes writes<\/span><\/a> about the difficulty of straddling different worlds and languages, and holding on to the culture of his origin country.<\/p>\n

He believes that at its core, poetry is about sharing an experience with readers they might not have otherwise had.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you read a poem by a poet who is living in Syria, you are granted access to an experience that is absolutely nothing like your experience living in Duluth or Montpelier,\u201d he said, and with that access often comes empathy. \u201cSo I think that engaging in that work is one of the most empathetic things we can do right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the poetry Akbar shared below:<\/p>\n

Poetry from the 7 countries impacted by Trump’s executive order on immigration<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Shared by Tehran-born poet Kaveh Akbar.<\/p>\n

Mohsen Emadi, Iran:<\/h5>\n

\"Mohsen\u00a0translated by Lyn Coffin<\/p>\n

Khaled Mattawa, Libya:<\/h5>\n
\"KhaledAbdullah Al-Baradouni, Yemen:<\/h5>\n

From Exile To Exile – <\/strong>Poem by Abdullah Al-Baradouni<\/p>\n

My country is handed over from one tyrant to the next,
\na worse tyrant; from one prison to another,
\nfrom one exile to another.
\nIt is colonised by the observed
\ninvader and the hidden one;
\nhanded over by one beast to two
\nlike an emaciated camel.
\nIn the caverns of its death
\nmy country neither dies
\nnor recovers. It digs
\nin the muted graves looking
\nfor its pure origins
\nfor its springtime promise
\nthat slept behind its eyes
\nfor the dream that will come
\nfor the phantom that hid.
\nIt moves from one overwhelming
\nnight to a darker night.
\nMy country grieves
\nin its own boundaries
\nand in other people’s land
\nand even on its own soil
\nsuffers the alienation
\nof exile.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Safia Elhillo, Sudan:<\/strong><\/div>\n
\"Safia<\/div>\n
Ladan Osman, Somalia:<\/strong><\/div>\n
\"LadanAmal Al-Jubouri, Iraq:<\/h5>\n
\"Amal<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Adonis, Syria:<\/h5>\n
\"Adonis-Syria\"<\/div>\n

Source: http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/poetry\/read-poems-7-countries-affected-trumps-immigration-ban\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday, Tehran-born poet Kaveh Akbar … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,1874],"tags":[1992,533,1946,497],"views":6484,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8063"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8063"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8074,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8063\/revisions\/8074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}