Mark Campbell
Medya News aims to be an authentic voice bringing you real and truthful stories from the Middle East with a particular focus on the Kurdish Question, that is often ignored, self-censored or suppressed by the mainstream media platforms.
Today, we have a very special edition of the Medya News podcast with an interview with a special person with a very powerful story and who is launching a new book of poetry called ‘Brave Little Sternums‘. Welcome to Medya News, Matt Broomfield!
Matt Broomfield is an award-winning poet and activist, journalist and writer, who recently spent three years, from 2018-2021, living and working in Rojava in solidarity with the women-led, direct-democratic revolution there. His debut poetry collection ‘Brave Little Sternums: Poems from Rojava‘, written in and about the revolution, is published on 8 July 2022 by Fly on the Wall. Matt is also a co-founder of the Rojava Information Centre, (RIC) the top independent English-language news source on the ground in the region. Matt spoke to Sarah Glynn for Medya News in April about his work for the RIC. Today’s podcast however is about Matt’s poetry.
His poetry has been published by the Tahoma Literary Review, Stand, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Agenda, Glass, the National Poetry Society, the Independent and the Best New British and Irish Poets 2021, among others; it has been shared across London by Poetry On The Underground; and he is a former Foyle Young Poet of the Year. Brave Little Sternums is his debut full-length collection.
As a professional writer and journalist, Matt’s role was to help co-found the Rojava Information Centre, the region’s top independent news and research source. In this capacity, he says, he was fortunate to risk far less than many other local and foreign volunteers—and to see the revolution from many sides, in many places, alongside many people. It was the most humbling, challenging and moving experience of his life he said. Matt says that so much primary-coloured propaganda and grey criticism has been written about Rojava, totally missing the real energy of the place. The revolution, he describes as living, ugly, beautiful, writhing, self-contradictory, hopelessly compromised—and utterly worth fighting for.
Matt dedicates this poetry book to Mehmet Aksoy (Firaz Dag), a British Kurdish film maker who was killed by ISIS in Raqqa on 26 September 2017, and to all those writers, journalists and artists who have given their lives in the pursuit of truth in Kurdistan.
Just a few of the first reviews of Matt Broomfield’s ‘Brave Little Sternums.’
“In these poems there is a human cry that is deeper than war or friendship alone. Broomfield has a precise pen, delicate emotions, and a deep love of people. He refuses to accept war, the occupation of nature, looting or destruction. As one enters into these poems, one sees a search for what is precious, the growth of nations, a desire for happiness, peace, equality and a world for everyone. These poems were written during Broomfield’s time in our country, where he decorated each moment with golden words. Each poem expresses a different moment in the revolution, each word returns to comradeship, and this book will be a gift to history. Broomfield’s pen is precious. His feelings even more so.” Nergiz Ismail, poet from Rojava
“Like the Rojavan revolution he describes, Broomfield’s poems are alive and writhing, unsparing in self-analysis and honest about the complex realities of translating theory into governance. It’s clear that these poems were written on the ground, in community and conversation, and their reflection of that experience has given this reader a richer, more human understanding than any academic theorizing or factual reportage. ‘Brave Little Sternums’ is not just literature about Rojava, it’s an essential contribution to the literature of Rojava, equally conversant with contemporary English and Kurmanji-language poetry.” David Shook, poet and Kurdish translator
“In true Brechtian style, this collection of poems exercises the reader’s intellect to distill the moving insights and delights of a well-chosen metaphor or turn of phrase to describe the contradictions of living through the Rojava revolution.” Rahila Gupta, poet, writer and activist
Some people may have heard a little about Matt and his poetry book, but some possibly, may not have, so I thought a good place to begin was by inviting him to tell us just a little bit, very briefly, of how he first came across the Kurdish issue and how he then happened to travel to Rojava, some of his experiences, and how he came up with the idea for the book of poetry and how that evolved.
I then asked him to choose four poems from his book and give us a little bit of context and background to the poems, and then invited him to read each one for us. Please listen to the full podcast for the context and background to the readings of each poem.
for Hevrin Khalef
the temptation is to elide
normalise or over-indulge
and not to inhabit
but this is our work
to dwell in the wound
of the occipital pit
not only to trace gravel in flesh
flight of the fighters
kick-back and bruise
but to reconstitute
from post-mortem proofs
a life riding Huawei
speaker-phone with an aunt
whose well has drawn dust
these eight years of the smoke
to remake the meat
of the leaky stove sit-down
in unfriendly times
to people the portraits
flash-bulb-caught in their
prime with bellies and
pamphlets of shrewd recommendations
and twinklings of grief
for the young are so ready
to haemorrhage freely
to become uninhabited
lighter than smoke
the truth is not
the sum of abrasions
but the abrasions
attest to the truth
for Anna Campbell (Helin Qerechox) (Died: 15 March 2018, Afrin, Syria, aged 27)
we would
but we will not
because we cannot do that
after that we would
we would not rest until we had
but our enemies are
so we cannot do that either
above all, we would also
in our thousands we would also
believe us, heval
at any cost we would also
but your body is not
we cannot even do that
you said: if you love your own
enough to fight for
and to die for (and you must love your own
enough to fight for and to die for)
you have to love the far from
enough to fight for and to die for
your saying weighs upon
every day it weighs upon
we cannot enough
we cannot enough
we can only this and that
in little towns here and there
which hug the border though it burns
which you fought for and died for
and made chai for and were for
we can only house by house
woman by woman we can
until we die for
until we cannot
until we die for
or
until
Launch night for Brave Little Sternums is 30 June 2022 and you can still register here.
Brave Little Sternums is officially published on 8 July and you can preorder a copy from here.
