Qleeshayawa

 

‘Qleeshayawa,' they would say and start running

the old, the young, men and women.

´Qleeshayawa,' they would say, it's cracking.

The young men joked about it-

It’s our marathon, it keeps us healthy.

They ran

Sometimes with no expression on their faces,

other times covered with the sweat of fear

running, looking back,

running, looking back,

or joking.

Sometimes it was triggered by a gunshot

or the sight of vicious soldiers

jumping out from their tank into a square.

Other times, accidentally, if somebody ran

they all followed.

Sometimes they would be surrounded by tanks

with nowhere to run

and to stand like a flock of sheep,

to witness the execution of a friend,

to clap and shout:

                         Long live justice!

Choman Hardi (Kurdistan, Iraq)

 

Choman Hardi was born in Kurdistan, Iraq, just before her parents fled to Iran. She returned to her hometown at the age of five but fled again to Iran at the age of fourteen in 1988. She has lived in Iraq, Iran and Turkey before coming to England in 1996 where she obtained a master degree in philosophy from University College, London. She has published three collections of poetry in Kurdish: Return with No Memory (1996), Light of the Shadow (1998) and Selected Poems (2003). Bloodaxe is publishing her first collection of poetry in English. Choman Hardi won the 2003 Jerwood-Arvon Young Poet’s Apprenticeship. Her poetry has appeared on BBC Radio 1 and 4. She facilitated creative writing workshops in the UK, Belgium, Czech Republic, India and Switzerland.