{"id":44662,"date":"2017-03-21T14:56:22","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T14:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/just2093.temp.domains\/~tqmoaseu\/i-feel-at-home-away-from-home-poetry-and-forced-migration\/"},"modified":"2022-07-09T17:07:21","modified_gmt":"2022-07-09T17:07:21","slug":"i-feel-at-home-away-from-home-poetry-and-forced-migration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moas.eu\/de\/i-feel-at-home-away-from-home-poetry-and-forced-migration\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I feel at home, away from home\u2019: poetry and forced migration"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Eric\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Since our inception, MOAS has been supported by many kinds of artists and writers, whose work is able to show new perspectives on forced migration, as well as inspiring empathy and action. Therefore, in honour of World Poetry Day, MOAS spoke to Eric Ngalle Charles – a poet, author, playwright and Cameroonian refugee now living in Ely, Wales – on the topic of poetry and forced migration. Eric has written extensively on the theme of seeking refuge, and now works with refugees and asylum seekers to help them make sense of their experiences of forced migration through the process of creative writing. <\/em><\/p>\n

Eric, can you tell us a little bit about your work and how your own experiences of seeking asylum have shaped the work that you produce?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI left Cameroon in such haste. I was a victim of human trafficking, ending up in Russia. The Cameroonian embassy in Russia said I was a Nigerian, but the Nigerian embassy could not accept me because I was Cameroonian. So, after 2 years and 2 months of being completely destitute, I managed to obtain a Zimbabwean passport and I finally came into Wales as a Zimbabwean.<\/p>\n

I was lucky enough to be introduced to a company called Literature Wales, and at that time they were doing one-day workshops on the theme of literature and trauma. Since then, I\u2019ve published 6 poetry anthologies. I have been engaging with other people who were victims of circumstance, and who left their countries in haste, seeking a new abode. My writing is based on using literature as a means of overcoming trauma. I engage with different members of community groups and they help me achieve this end.\u201d<\/p>\n

I wanted to ask you a little more about how literature and poetry can help work through trauma, and how you think that writing is helpful to people in these situations.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI always try to put this into perspective. In European societies, when you talk to people about movement, people think about the labour of moving homes, of moving your property and belongings from one city to another. But movement for asylum seekers or refugees is so traumatic that is it\u2019s not only about the initial displacement. It\u2019s not only about you losing your home, it\u2019s about capture, some of it is treacherous movements, it\u2019s climbing mountains, some of it is crossing the seas and they are doing that constantly to seek peace and finding none. There is continuous trauma until the point of arrival.<\/p>\n