My early education began with poetry recitation. And so goes the answer when people have asked me, so far, what made me interested in poetry. There is a grain of truth in it but that is a whole different story that I need to write later. But now, an Iraqi poem. I first heard this poem in Farsi, not Arabic, a long time ago in Iran. I was a refugee. I was attending a poetry gathering when a young Hazara poet stepped up to the podium and said, “Today I’d like to read a poem by an Iraqi poet.” I don’t remember if he mentioned the poet’s name, or whether it was even his own composition, but what he said stayed with me. I listened intently. The poem deeply resonated with the Hazara people, those who have been driven from their homeland, Hazaristan. It captured the sorrow of exile and the search for a meaningful way to express that longing. The version he read had already been translated into Farsi. As he recited it, something about the rhythm and emotion drew me in more and more, and before...
sporadic thoughts and reflections of an anthropology phd student