The poetry of migration

Michael Rosen, compering the 'Poetry of Migration' event at Londonewcastle Project Space earlier this year, drawn by Nick Ellwood.

One of the first events we held in the course of our three-week residency at Londonewcastle this summer (where more than 4,000 people visited our exhibition Call Me By My Name: Stories from Calais and Beyond) was the 'Poetry of Migration' on Tuesday 6 June. Michael Rosen (distinguished poet, writer, entertainer – and distinguished friend of the Migration Museum Project) compered the event, at which Ruth Padel and Jackie Kay were fellow guest speakers.

When we'd advertised the event, we had also asked people to let us know if they would like to present their own poems, so the evening was less about studious, respectful listening to the panel poets – though it was that, too – and more about participation. People presented their poems from the floor – Sophie Herxheimer and Karen McCarthy Woolf, PJ Samuels, Antoine Cassar and Elizabeth-Jane Burnett among them – and the audience expressed the full range of response you might have expected from an evening of poetry based around the theme of migration: tears, laughter, some anger, some despair. As a curtain-raiser for the exhibition itself, it was perfectly judged.

Nick Ellwood, the artist behind the panel drawings of Jungle residents in the middle room, sat in the audience and drew portraits of some of the performers. We've reproduced his drawings in this blog, together with some of the poems read out by the people he was drawing. It's a rich combination: one of the artists we were privileged to work with for the exhibition producing beautiful sketch drawings of some of the incredibly talented writers we were thrilled to have perform at the event. We hope you enjoy this memento of the evening.

 

Ruth Padel

Purple Ink

She has waited three years for this. Too ashamed

to even half-tell the young woman in spectacles

tapping a purple biro on a desk

exactly what the soldiers did to her, each versatile

in his turn, she gets wrong Date your mother was born

and sees a stamp the colour of desert night descend on her file.

 

The Prayer Labyrinth

She went looking for her daughter. How many

visit Hades and live? Your only hope

is the long labyrinth of Visa Application

interviews with a volunteer from a charity

you're not allowed to meet. You've been caught:

by a knock on the door at dawn

or hiding in a truck of toilet tissue

or just getting stuck in a turn-stile.

You're on Dead Island: the Detention Centre.

The Russian refugees who leaped from the fifteenth floor

of a Glasgow tower block to the Red Road

Springburn – Serge, Tatiana and their son,

who when the Immigration officers

were at the door, tied themselves together

before they jumped – knew what was coming.

Anyway you're here. Evidence of cigarette

burns all over your body has been dismissed

by the latest technology. You're dragged

from your room, denied medication

or a voice. You can't see your children,

they're behind bars somewhere else.

You go on hunger strike. You're locked

in a corridor for three days without water

then handcuffed through the biopsy

on your right breast. You've no choice

but to pray; and to walk the never-ending path

of meditation on not yet. Your nightmare

was home-grown; you're seeking sanctuary.

They say you don't belong. They give you

a broken finger, a punctured lung.

 

Ruth Padel, reading her poem 'Time to Fly', drawn by Nick Ellwood.

Time to Fly

You go because you heard a cuckoo call. You go because

you've met someone, you made a vow, there are no more

grasshoppers. You go because the cold is coming, spring

is coming, soldiers are coming: plague, flood, an ice age,

a new religion, a new idea. You go because the world rotates,

because the world is changing and you've lost the key.

You go because you have the kingdom of heaven in your heart.

And the kingdom of hell has taken over someone else's heart.

You go because you have magnetite in your brain, thorax, tips

of your teeth. Because there's food over the hill

and there'll be gold, or more likely bauxite,

inside the hill. You go because your mother is dying

and only you can bring her the apples of the Hesperides.

You go because you need work.

You go because astrologers say so. Because the sea

is calling and your best friend bought a motorbike

in America last year. You go because the streets are paved

with gold and your father went when he was your age.

You go because you have seventeen children and the Lord will provide;

because your sixteen brothers have parcelled up the land

and there's none left for you. You go because the waters are rising,

an ice sheet is melting, the rivers are dry

there are no more fish in the sea. You go because God

has given you a sign – you had a dream – the potatoes are blighted.

Because it is too hot, too cold, you are on a quest for knowledge

and knowledge is always beyond. You go because it's destiny,

because Pharoah won't let you light candles at sundown on Friday.

Because you're looking for

an enchanted lake, the meaning of life, a tall tree to nest in.

You go because travel is holy, because your body

is wired to go, you'd have a quite different body and different brain

if you were the sort of bird that stayed. You go

because you can't pay the rent: creditors lie in wait for your children

after school. You go because Pharoah has hogged the oil,

electricity and paraffin so all you have on your table

are candles, when you can get them.

You go because there's nothing left to hope for;

because there's everything to hope for and all life is risk.

You go because someone put the evil eye on you

and barometric pressure is dropping. You go because

you can't cope with your gift – other people can't cope with your gift –

you have no gift and the barbarians are after you.

You go because the barbarians are gone, Herod

has turned off the internet and mobile phones, the modem

is useless and the eagles are coming. You go because the eagles

have died off with the vultures and the ancestors are angry

there's no one to clean the bones. You go in peace, you go in war.

Someone has offered you a job. You go because your dog

is going too. Because the Grand Vizier sent paramilitaries to your house last night

you have to go quick and leave the dog behind.

You go because you've eaten the dog and that's it, there's nothing else.

You go because you've given up and might as well. Because your love

is dead – because she laughed at you; because she's coming with you,

it will be a big adventure and you'll live happily ever after.

You go in hope, in faith, in haste, high spirits, deep sorrow, deep

snow, deep shit and without question.

You pause halfway to stoke up on Omega 3 and horseshoe crabs.

You go for phosphorus, myrtle-berries, salt. You go for oil

and pepper. It was your father's dying wish.

You go from pole to pole, you go because you can,

you have no feet, you sleep and mate on the wing.

Because you need a place to shed your skin

in safety. You go with a thousand questions but you are growing up,

growing old, moving on. Say goodbye to the might-have-beens –

you can't step into the same river twice.

You go because hope, need and escape

are names for the same god. You go because life

is sweet, life is cheap, life is flux

and you can't take it with you. You go because you're alive,

because you're dying, maybe dead already. You go because you must.

© Ruth Padel from The Mara Crossing, Chatto and Windus, 2012

Sophie Herxheimer

London

Not zo mainy Dais zinz ve arrivink.

Zis grey iss like Bearlin, zis same grey Day

ve hef. Zis norzern Vezzer, oont ze demp Street.

A biet off Rain voant hurt, vill help ze Treez

on zis Hempstet Heese vee see in Fekt.

Vy shootd I mind zat?

I try viz ze Busses, Herr Kondooktor eskink

me … for vot? I don't eckzectly remempber;

Fess plees? To him, my Penny I hent ofa –

He notdz viz a keint Smile – Fanks Luv!

He sez. Oh! I em his Luff – turns Hentell

on Machine, out kurls a Tikett.

Zis is ven I know zat here to settle iss OK. Zis

City vill be Home, verr eefen on ze Buss is Luff.

Sophie Herxheimer, drawn in full flow when reading 'London', by Nick Ellwood.

 

Vosch by Hendt, Lern by Hart!

Ze yunkest off my grayt grayt

Grent-Childtrenn is lynink up

her Dollse oont Behrs for Klarse.

Ven zay slump in rekggitt

Exhorstschon, she arraintches zem

to lean on ze Kupboart. Zit up ztrate!

She Kommarnts.  If Enny Vun

off you nose ze Aanser, don't

schout out; poot up your Hendt!

Ze Svetter zat zis Teacher

vairs, looks ottley familiar.

Ze Vun Aunt Frieda sent from Vienna

for my Girl ven she voz small.

I see ze Vool still hess some Bountz.

Oont amazinkly, no Moss Holse!

Funny Frieda alvays sett she dittn't

leik to knit: I heffnt ze Payschunz,

she leidt. Zis Svetter hess en intrikett

Pettern off blue Skvairs, raist in a Ridch

ofa nice veit Stokkink Stitch –

I marfellt et it zen, ven it arrifte, springink

like a Lemm from stiff brown Paper.

Vizzin Veeks of zat, Frieda, leik zo Menny,

voz seeztd, imprissont, murdtert.

Now zis endurink Laybor off hurze

iss vorn ess a Keint off Uniform:

kommarntink All who are born, or eefen

stufft: Make Sinks. Make Sinks up! Play!

© Sophie Herxheimer

'London' first appeared as no.22 in a series of concrete poetry broadsides from Brazil, called POW, subsequently appearing in Jewish Quarterly and Long Poem Magazine, and was also made into a film.  

'Vosch by Hendt, Learn by Hart' has just been published in the Vanguard Anthology.   

Nadia Faydh

Things I miss

When I wake up to the cloudy sky

Of London,

I feel overwhelmed:

A fit of yearning.

It is not that I want to go back,

but simply miss the way it was:

The sunny mornings,

The fresh smell of Cardamom

My mother used to make with tea

Or the smell of fresh bread,

When my father is back from the bakery …

Maybe I miss those Fridays,

When all the sisters gather around;

Voices of playing kids

Filling the air with delicious noise,

“the house can't take us all,”

I would say,

My mother would stop me…

She likes it when we're all there.

Maybe I miss dad's big smile:

when his granddaughters

Greet him with a kiss.

I miss watching all the girls

Working in the kitchen,

Or Sit to the table laughing loud …

Dad would come in, take a picture,

To remember those moments I miss!

© Nadia  Faydh

Guest readers at the event – Nadia Faydh on the right – drawn by Nick Ellwood.

Michael Rosen

Madame le Pen

Mme Le Pen,

la raison pourquoi

on a donné une étoile jaune

à l'oncle et à la tante de mon père

la raison pourquoi

on a demand qu'ils devaient attacher

une affiche disante 'Enterprise juive'

à leur étal de marché

la raison pourquoi

ils ont fuit leur asile

dans la rue Mellaise à Niort

la raison pourquoi

ils se sont réfugiés à Nice

la raison pourquoi

on les a arrêtés et on les a transportés

à Paris, à Drancy, à Auschwitz et à leurs morts

est parce que

les officiers de Vichy

ont fait un 'Fishier juif' des juifs étrangers

et l'a donné aux Nazis au moment exacte

que la Résistance a dit bienvenu aux juifs

bienvenu aux étrangers

et c'est ça, la raison pourquoi

je vous dis ces choses

Mme Le Pen.

Michael Rosen, reciting his poem 'To Madame le Pen', drawn by Nick Ellwood.

Mme Le Pen,

the reason why

they gave a yellow star

to my father's uncle and aunt

the reason why

they told them they had to fix a sign

saying 'Jewish Business' on their market stall

the reason why

they fled from their refuge in the rue Mellaise

in Niort

the reason why

they took refuge in Nice

the reason why

they were arrested and transported

to Paris, to Drancy, to Auschwitz and to their death

is because the officials of Vichy

made a 'Jewish File' of foreign Jews

and gave it to the Nazis

at the exact moment

that the Resistance was welcoming

Jews and was welcoming foreigners

and that's the reason why

I am telling you these things

Mme Le Pen.

 

Mother Father Cable Street

You Connie Ruby Isakofsky

From Globe Road in Bethnal Green

You Harold Rosen

From Nelson street, Whitechapel

You Connie with your mother and father

From Romania and Poland

You Harold with your family from Poland

You Connie

You Harold

your families working in the rag trade

Hats, caps, jackets and gowns

Hats, caps, jackets and gowns

You both saw Hitler on the Pathe News

You both saw Hitler Blaming the Jews

You both collected for Spain,

collecting for Spain

When Franco came

When round the tenements,

the whisper came

Mosley wants to march

Here, through the East End

So what should it be?

To Trafalgar Square to support Spain:

No pasaran?

Or to Gardiners Corner to support Whitechapel:

They shall not pass.

Round the tenements

The whisper came

Fight here in Whitechapel

The whisper came:

Winning here

We  support

Spain there.

These are the streets where we live

These are the streets where we go to school

These are the streets where we work

They shall not pass.

You Connie

You Harold

Went to Gardiner's Corner

You went to Cable Street

You piled chairs on the barricades

The mounted police charged you

A stranger took you indoors

To escape a beating

And thousands

Hundreds of thousands came here

Fighting Mosley

Supporting Spain

Thinking of Germany

And

Mosley did not pass.

You Connie

You Harold

Said, today the bombs on Guernica in Spain

Tomorrow the bombs on London here.

And you were bombed

the same planes, the same bombs

landing in the same streets

where you had said

they shall not pass

And the bodies

piled up across the world

Million after million after million after million

You Connie, your cousins in Poland

Taken to camps

Wiped out

You Harold, your uncles and aunts in France and Poland

Taken to camps

Wiped out.

But you Connie, my mother

You Harold, my father

You survived

You lived

We were born

We grew

You mother

You father

told us these things

I write these things

And today,

I tell you these things

We remember here together

Thanks to you

And we say:

They shall not pass.

 

© Michael Rosen