REFUGEES in the Reading area are using poetry to reconnect with home with new University workshops.
Celebrating memories of their home countries and identities, poetry writing is proving to be a creative way to process emotions.
Arranged by Dr Yasmine Shamma, of the University of Reading, and Jude Haste of Reading Refugee Support Group (RRSG), the sessions have been running throughout the summer.
And the poetry written during the workshops will be published as a collection in the future, and showcased in a new online archive called Making Home Away.
Dr Shamma, a lecturer in modern and contemporary literature, said: “The refugees we work with come from all over the world, and have some incredible, and heart-breaking, stories.
“Sometimes feelings of frustration or anger come through in their writing, but poetry allows you to mentally order those kinds of feelings and make sense of the turmoil, as a form of art therapy. We offer a safe place to process their senses of displacement, and direct them to their own notebooks’ pages for future processing.”
Poetry writing also taps into the tradition of oral history and performance which have taken place for centuries across the globe.
Historically, many poems were traditional folk testimonies with long descriptions of the landscape and their spiritual importance.
Building on this theme, refugees in the workshops – which are run in both English and Arabic – are prompted to think about the significance of their everyday actions, both in Reading and their home countries.
One refugee wrote about coming home and smelling breakfast being cooked and explored the details of the recipe’s ingredients during the workshop.
Another Palestinian man was encouraged to swap his literal description the city of Haifa, where thousands of Palestinians were forced to leave in 1948, for one that described his personal memories of being raised there.
Dr Shamma said: “The resulting sensory description of the breakfast recipe, with the smell of the onions and paprika cooking, revealed far more about his family’s culture and provided meaning to his everyday experience by showing that ordinary details matter.
“The Haifa poem was written as a way of mourning a lost home, but it allowed the writer to go back there for a second in his mind. He hadn’t been to the city since he was about 10-years-old, but could remember so many small details.”
The workshops are inspired by techniques taught by poet and author Kate Clanchy, a creative writing lecturer at the university.
Her work with refugee school pupils has led to them producing award-winning published poetry and she was given an MBE in 2018.
Her creative writing techniques are soon to be published in a book titled Grow your Own Poem.
The poems will also be included in Dr Shamma’s upcoming book, When We Talk About Home, which will draw on interviews she conducted with refugees in camps in Jordan and Lebanon as part of field work funded by the British Academy.
There are also plans for online performances of the poetry by the refugees, in keeping with traditions.
The poetry workshops are part of an RRSG project titled Routes to Roots, commissioned by Living Reading and Reading Culture Live, in partnership with Dr Shamma.
