Making Mirrors: Righting/Writing by Refugees

• In Event: Haunting Diasporas / Diaspora Haunts

Abstract

This paper examines hauntings identified in the work of refugee poets from Syria, Afghanistan, Palestine, and elsewhere, including those still in transit, relocated, and re/unsettled. Their poetry offers a poetics of belonging--to the earth, family, memories packed into backpacks--referencing those who lift their children to the sky and those whose spirits are at the bottom of the sea. “Making mirrors,” which comes from Nazim Hikmet’s poem “Some Advice for those Who Will Serve Time in Prison” is an active verb and a plural noun, imagistic connections that refugees create, as protest and tradition, amidst multiple hauntings.

Presenter

• Becky Thompson, Simmons College