In
2015 I started to write a collection of poetry based on interviews I
was doing with Syrian refugees.
I
have been writing poetry and fiction my whole life, but this time it
grew out of my volunteer work with refugees from the warzones in
Syria. It grew out of my meeting their experiences, their horror,
their love, their often incredible bravery, and their journeys to get
to safe ground again.
Refugees
arriving at Lesbos after their flight across the sea. Yannis
Behrakis/Reuters
Over
the next few years, it became an internal pressure in me; the stories
I heard, the interviews I did, started filling me up until I thought
they would spill out by themselves. I had to write them down, had to
try to make sense of them, had to help their stories get out.
The
collection is finally close to getting published now, hopefully by
Christmas 2019.
(Picture
from Aleppo, Syria, in 2016. You can watch the full video at CNN:
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2016/10/11/aerial-drone-video-aleppo-syria-ruins-zw-orig.cnn)
About
twenty of the forty or so test-readers of the book so far have been
refugees; I wanted to make certain my poems gave justice to their
stories.
Then
for a long time, while I kept writing the poems, I looked for a
translator. Someone who could help me make the book English-Arabic. I
thought this would be more fitting, as most stories in it come from
Arabic-speaking refugees. I have heard many stories from refugees
from other wars too; all the way back to survivors of the Holocaust
and onwards. But most of those who were kind to talk to me for this
book were Arabic speakers, and it felt better to me if their voices
could be read in the Arabic-speaking world too.
In
2019, after asking a dozen people, I finally got lucky and found a
person who is passionate about helping me translate the poems. I also
got the first test reader who is equally passionate to both read them
and to help test-read the English/Arabic translation to make sure it
works well.
Due
to censorship from the state, if you live inside Syria now, you can´t
even write there´s a war on. My poems in this collection are a way
of helping to hold the torch for a little while, until they can lift
it and write freely again. The poems are also an attempt to help make
the voices of refugees heard, so that people understand why they
actually flee. Given the current situation in Syria, and the recent
withdrawal of US support from the Kurds, we might unfortunately see
even more refugees trying to get to safety over the next few years.
A
bombed hospital in Idlib. Ahmed Khatib/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
This
book is a very small thing at the outskirts of a war that has been
going on for eight years. But I hope I can help make their voices
heard louder. I hope I can help people understand more of the
feelings that lie behind the term “refugee”, too: it is an easy
word to say, and most of us are so lucky that we can´t even begin to
understand the pain that sometimes can hide behind it.
Our
humanity is what binds us together – human rights are a beacon we
have to keep lighting again and again to help it shine everywhere.
You
can follow this book and my other coming books either here on the
blog, or on Instagram, @skylewriting. Another collection of poetry
will follow this one, and a collection of short stories.
I
will write more on the poems as we get nearer to publication, and
I´ll put a few of them up on here and on Instagram so you can read.
Daniel Skyle
@skylewriting
(You can also find my books on Amazon, here: Source Analysis for Elections)
