artwork by
Fatemeh Takht-Keshian
Poetry activism promotes diversity and cultural dialogue and advocates for human rights and social justice. The magazine’s poetry section is a cultural and linguistic mediator for Immigrant poets to reach the other side of hope. This section is a platform and welcoming space for writ- ers to be seen and heard. Migrants, exiles, and lost souls from different countries found a way to express themselves in literature here. After all, the poet is someone who identifies ills in world societies and points them out. In the process, poets draw on certain pain and then use their emotions to present that pain to the masses.
This is an anthology of poems by writers of diverse backgrounds (age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexuality) from the UK and elsewhere in the world. Their poetry highlights the human aspect of immigration, often occluded by political rhetoric. We can see their dreams, thoughts, and feelings written here. We can hear their voices. We can even smell their lived experiences from reading their powerful words. That way, their poetry becomes a shared complexity of human experience. As you read through the following pages, you will notice the diversity in the selection of composition, poetic forms, techniques, rhyme, and theme structure. Each poem tells of the history of each writer’s homeland in the way that they see it. These writings are an important part of the records of their experiences with migra- tion, releasing their private monologue, featuring a diversity of forms, languages, styles, tones, and themes of poetry writing, as well as trans culture, identity, and literary traditions.
Each poem reflects the writer’s personality, beliefs, culture, politics, and place, which differ from one country to another. However, they all share humanity, freedom, safety, family, love, peace, humour, and adventure. For instance, Godwin Akinyele remebers home in his poem Recalling Home from Exile, then celebrates the rainbow nation in a poem titled The Beautiful Colours of our Colourless Wales. Meanwhile, Maria Cohut reminds us that it’s all about journeying in her One Last Journey, while Muntather Alsawad’s Is That Our Train actually takes us on that journey. Sara Milić’s poems My Father, Before I Was Born, Mourning and Bosnian Girls are a wake-up call to how our emotions make us humans. Polina Cosgrave opens our eyes to the fact that it is all about details in her two pieces: A Dog Buried Wrong and Interrupted Vow. As the world’s current crises unfold before our eyes, Khawla Badwan brings our attention close to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza with her poems Worried and It All Depends. Andrea Damic’s Sarajevo speaks of loss. TWP Tilden’s Words of a Feather turns our attention to the power of words and language, just like how B. Anne Adriaens and Lucas Spiller do in their poems Flatlands Receding and N. 29508. Likewise, the poem of Saligrama K. Aithal, A Poem in Two Languages: Ancient and Modern. Philip Buttafuoco’s Days, Weeks, Months touches on the fascinating concept of time, while Alberto Quero speculates on The Names of the Earth. Carolina Christevelyn Pay takes us on a dream in her poem Dream as Ebtisam Elghblawi stirs our tenderness with her poem Harshness. The poetry of the other side of hope brings these together to give ‘immigrants’ a platform where their words, lives, and personal experiences are valued.
Each poem reflects the writer’s personality, beliefs, culture, politics, and place, which differ from one country to another. However, they all share humanity, freedom, safety, family, love, peace, humour, and adventure. For instance, Godwin Akinyele remebers home in his poem Recalling Home from Exile, then celebrates the rainbow nation in a poem titled The Beautiful Colours of our Colourless Wales. Meanwhile, Maria Cohut reminds us that it’s all about journeying in her One Last Journey, while Muntather Alsawad’s Is That Our Train actually takes us on that journey. Sara Milić’s poems My Father, Before I Was Born, Mourning and Bosnian Girls are a wake-up call to how our emotions make us humans. Polina Cosgrave opens our eyes to the fact that it is all about details in her two pieces: A Dog Buried Wrong and Interrupted Vow. As the world’s current crises unfold before our eyes, Khawla Badwan brings our attention close to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza with her poems Worried and It All Depends. Andrea Damic’s Sarajevo speaks of loss. TWP Tilden’s Words of a Feather turns our attention to the power of words and language, just like how B. Anne Adriaens and Lucas Spiller do in their poems Flatlands Receding and N. 29508. Likewise, the poem of Saligrama K. Aithal, A Poem in Two Languages: Ancient and Modern. Philip Buttafuoco’s Days, Weeks, Months touches on the fascinating concept of time, while Alberto Quero speculates on The Names of the Earth. Carolina Christevelyn Pay takes us on a dream in her poem Dream as Ebtisam Elghblawi stirs our tenderness with her poem Harshness. The poetry of the other side of hope brings these together to give ‘immigrants’ a platform where their words, lives, and personal experiences are valued.
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