Une Fenêtre au ciel iréel (a window to a hypothetical sky)
An evening of readings from the works of 6 poets who had been, or currently are, imprisoned, held at Le Soleil Bleu in Lodève, SW France, which I organised as part of the Printemps des Poètes, March 2017. The title is from a line from a poem by Abdellatif Laabi.
Three of the poets are currently in prison.
ASHRAF FAYAD, a Palestinian poet living in Saudi Arabia, was last year sentenced to death by the Saudi government for writing a poem in which he, apparently, renounced Islam. His sentence was handed down out without a lawyer and without a trial. Earlier this year the sentence was commuted to 8 years in prison plus 800 lashes.
The poem in question was less of an attack on his religion than an attack on the Saudi petrochemical industry and the political corruption that supports this industry. The Moroccan poet, Tahar Ben Jelloun, has described him as one of the most important contemporary Arab poets who is part of a long tradition of insurrectionist and satirical poets within the Arab world. A selection of his poems, translated into French by Abdellatif Laabi, was published last year and an English translation, ‘Instruction
Click here to find out more about Ashraf Fayad.
The UK government has made no representation to the Saudi government about this abuse of human rights and attack on freedom of creative expression but it is continuing to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia and these weapons are being used to bomb refugee camps in Yemen. You can also write to your elected representative to demand she or he takes this up with Teresa May’s government.
Click here to sign the petition
DAREEN TATOUR is another imprisoned Palestinian poet. She was arrested last year by the Israeli government for a poem which called for resistance to Israeli aggression in Occupied Palestine. The crime for which she was arrested, inciting violence on social media, does not actually exist under Israeli law. She was placed under house arrest while the Israeli government change the law in order to try her and jail her.
Click on this link to read ‘Resist My People, Resist Them’ – the poem for which she was arrested.
Click on this link for Dareen’s Facebook page.
Click on this link to read about the campaign for her release.
This is my poem for her.
House Arrest
(For Dareen Tatour)
Do you close the window against the sounds of birdsong, close the shutters against the daylight?
Do you eschew the soft sheets and plump cushions of your comfortable bed and favourite chair and sleep instead on a wooden plank and sit instead on a backless bench?
Do you stand waiting in your hallway, towel over your shoulder, eyes cast down, before entering your bathroom?
Do you ignore the humming refrigerator and feed yourself instead on slightly stale bread and something thin and lukewarm from a bowl?
Do you hold your breath every time you cross from one side of your living room to the other?
Do you tear pages from the books in your library and crumple them up before you leaf through them? Cut articles from the daily newspaper and destroy them them before you look at it? Do you take that thick black marker pen and erase random lines from my letters before you read them?
From prison you will eventually return to the sanctuary of your unsullied home.
But to forever taint your house with the stench of confinement is a punishment only the monstrous could come up with.
MAHVASH SABET is an Iranian teacher and poet who was arrested and jailed 9 years ago for her membership of a faith group, the Baha’i, although the Iranian government justified the sentence by claiming she was a foreign spy. She was sentenced to 20 years. A collection of her poems, written in jail, ‘Prison Poems’ has been published in English and French translations.
This is my poem for Mahvash
Trailer
(For Marvash Sabet)
The ragged flowers that struggle round the yard
are just the advance guard.
The songs of birds, subliminally heard,
merely a rough sketch, a preliminary draft.
The patches of refracted blue on scratched surfaces
are only manufacturers’ samples.
Cosmic harbingers, those isolated stars.
Our words to you: the outriders
from the rightful world that comes to reclaim you.
Click on this link to find out more about Mahvash Sabet.
The evening ended with spectators invited to write poems or messages of support for Dareen and Mahvash, all of which were sent to them in prison with copies going to members of their families. PEN International is an organisation that campaigns for the release of imprisoned writers worldwide. Click on this link to find out more about the work of PEN International and its current campaigns and find out where to write letters of support for writers in prison.