Picture - Kurdish Poem

Four children

a Turk, a Persian

an Arab and a Kurd were collectively drawing the picture of a man.

The first drew his head

The second drew his hands and upper limbs

The third drew his legs and torso

The fourth drew a gun on his shoulder

--- Sherko Bekas [1979]

I am Kurdish ( أنا كردي )

I challenge poverty, privation, pain. 

I resist times of oppression with strength.
I have courage.
I do not love angel eyes, skin white as marble.
I love the rocks, the hills, the peaks lost among the clouds.
I challenge misfortune, misery, solitude 

And I shall never be a slave of the enemy, never grant him treaty!

I challenge batons, chains, torture. 

And even if my body lies torn in pieces,
With all my strength 

I shall scream: I am Kurdish.

--- Hemin Mukriyani

Kurds are an ethnic group indigenous to a region called Kurdistan spanning parts of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. They have long sought the creation of an independent Kurdish nation due to historic repression and the denial of autonomy. Despite partial autonomy in Iraq and Syria, the demand for a separate nation remains unresolved, with Kurdish nationalism still actively suppressed in several countries

BORDERS

Adored land, my country,

a love that I had lost..

if you had been remote 

in an inaccessible sky

or at a summit of the world

I would have known 

how to run to you 

even with iron shoes.

But a narrow distance 

separates you from me..

The invader calls it a border.

--- Hemin Mukriyani

Kurds are an ethnic group indigenous to a region called Kurdistan spanning parts of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. They have long sought the creation of an independent Kurdish nation due to historic repression and the denial of autonom. Despite partial autonomy in Iraq and Syria, the demand for a separate nation remains unresolved, with Kurdish nationalism still actively suppressed in several countries.