Building Bridges not Borders

Connecting is paar with us paar through poetry

The Mother Tongue Poetry Evening was our very first Solent-based literature event for Bridges not Borders. Eleven languages from across our troubled world brought us together on this autumn evening. Poets and poetry enthusiasts read poems in beloved languages – languages we wanted to use more often, read more often, share with others. We leaned into each other’s languages, listening eagerly to the cadences of unfamiliar words and the rhythms of different poetic traditions.

We felt the melancholy and nostalgia in the Welsh-and-English poem “Hieraith” by Miriam Coley and the dark questioning in Namdeo Dhasal’s Marathi poem about Dallit experiences, shared by Tanay Gandhi. 

Aanka Batta read her Hindi poem “Ki Tarah” which is a response to racism, and Rishika shared a poem about “a strange darkness [coming] upon the world” by Jiabanananda Das called, “Adbhut Aadhar Ek”. All our poems, whether chosen or written by us seemed to reflect how we were feeling about the borders and divisions that result in so much strife.

After the Open Mic segment, we worked in groups on collaborative poems that wove the languages in our groups into poems about forming bridges between us, not borders. This was such a creative and enriching experience. learning words in each other’s languages and studding our poems with them.

Sue, Helen and Rishika wrote in english and Bangla of “travelling across সীমান্ত (shimanto: border)”. The speaker finds themselves “between the visa and the সমুদ্র (samudra: sea)”.

Seay, Aanka and Miriam shared a poem in Mandarin, Hindi and English that spoke of turbulent waters, with the speaker of the poem saying of a guard at a river border “khada hai, gooroor ki tarah (standing there, like arrogance)” while, “河水只想吞噬他的每一寸肌肤 (Héshuǐ zhǐ xiǎng tūnshì tā de měi yīcùn jīfū: The river only wants to devour every inch of his body) of arrogance”. 

Aiysha, Tanay and Annie played on the word pull, which is “bridge” in both Marathi and Urdu, “pulling us together, is paar, us paar (joining this side to the other)”.

Susmita, Yang Li and Charley dreamt of the kind of riches that build understanding: “বই, বই (boi, boi: books, books) and a houseful of more books” and friends from across the world!

We ended the evening understanding each other a little better, drawn a little closer, smiling a little fuller in remembering the beautiful words and music of each other's mother tongues.