A collection of poetry about the war in Syria: interviews with refugees

In 2015 I began writing a collection of poetry based on interviews I was doing with Syrian refugees.

I have been writing poetry and fiction my whole life, but this time it grew out of my volunteer work with refugees from the war zones in Syria. It grew out of my meeting their experiences, their horror from the war, the huge love that drove them, their often incredible bravery, and their journeys to get to safe ground again.

Refugees arriving at Lesbos after their flight across the sea. Yannis Behrakis/Reuters

Over the next few years, it became an internal pressure in me. The stories I heard, the interviews I did for the poems, all started filling me up until I thought they would spill out by themselves. I had to write them down, had to try to make sense of them, had to help their stories get out.

(Picture from Aleppo, Syria, in 2016. You can watch the full video at CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2016/10/11/aerial-drone-video-aleppo-syria-ruins-zw-orig.cnn)

About twenty-five of the fifty or so test-readers of the book so far have been refugees; I wanted to make certain my poems gave justice to their stories.

Some parts of Syria are now, in 2020, beginning to rebuild and trying to resume a life even though it´s still under Assad. Other parts are still at war, with the long-time and added complication of Russian forces active both on the ground and in the air. 

Due to censorship from the state, if you live inside Syria, you can still not write there´s a war on. My poems in this collection are a way of helping to hold the torch for a little while, until they can lift it and write freely again. The poems are also an attempt to help make the voices of refugees heard, so that people understand why they actually flee. 

A bombed hospital in Idlib. Ahmed Khatib/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

This book is a very small thing at the outskirts of a war that has been going on for nine years. But I hope I can help make their voices heard louder. I promised those I interviewed I would get their stories out there. 

I hope I can also help people understand more of the feelings that lie behind the term “refugee”. It is an easy word to say, and most of us are so lucky that we can´t even begin to understand the pain that often hides behind it. Due to global warming and how it can ignite conflict and food scarcity, the UN says we will see an increased refugee flow over the coming years.

Our humanity is what binds us together; human rights are a beacon we have to keep lighting again and again to help it shine everywhere.

You can follow this book and my coming books here and @skylewriting on Instagram.

I will write more on the poems as we get closer to publication in 2020, and I´ll put some of them up on here and on Instagram so you can read. I will also add comments on the poems with stories of some of those I interviewed, and some texts on writing, inspiration, and the beauty and challenges we can find as we move on the edges of life. 

Welcome to my writing. 

Daniel Skyle

@skylewriting

(You can also find my books on Amazon, here: Source Analysis for Elections)

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