Kurdish woman nominated for England poetry award

LONDON, England (Kurdistan24) – On Monday, a Kurdish-British woman was shortlisted for Forward Prize for her latest collection of poetry.

Critically acclaimed poet and researcher Dr. Choman Hardi was nominated for England’s prize of “poems from the age of migration” for her collection Considering the Women.

Published in October 2016 by Bloodaxe Books, Considering the Women is picked along with four other selections for the prestigious Forward prizes of £15,000.

Hardi’s poems, the creative result of her research on female survivors of Kurdish genocide (Anfal), make a powerful and moving collection that the jury considers “complete resurgence” and a “breaking down of barriers” in poetry.

Born in 1974 in Sulaimani to a literary family, Hardi moved to Iran when she was 14. In 1993, she sought asylum in the United Kingdom and received her degrees there.

In addition to three collections of poetry in Kurdish, she has published another one in English, Life for US (Bloodaxe, 2004).

She now teaches English literature at the American University of Sulaimani, and she continues to raise awareness about gender inequalities in the Region.

Here is an excerpt from her poem Dibs Camp, the Women’s Prison:

You do not die! Not when you want to

Not when your son withers in your lap

and he cries until he can no more, when the last thing

he asks of you is ‘cucumber,’ and you give him

a green slipper to suckle on, because he is beyond

knowing the difference.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany