[Music]
[Applause]
instead of breaking the airglow inch
from the back of a small car loaded two
men in its front three at its back
missed me praise my opened legs my skirt
that sent the egg towards the floor to
do its breaking their praise my head and
its quickness a clean fold towards my
lap to dodge the second egg faster than
the first rising to see the damage spoke
the words not today Lord not today the
back of the bus stopped a new target not
my face should have stood up and ran
into the dark screamed cried asked why
II instead laughed told no one made
excuses said it was dark said it was
only a game praised being left stainless
mother would have noticed otherwise
would have said that’s it
close my door you’re never going out
again I call that poem Halloween because
it’s the time of year that this incident
happened and also because I think it
helps to blame Halloween and not my
blackness or my head job or anything
about me specifically and I wrote this
poem quite recently but it actually
happened a year ago so I do what’s
convenient mostly which is to forget
things or places or people or things
that have hurt me and there are whole
countries and territories that have
shaped to me directly or indirectly that
I’ve also conveniently forgotten about
and not that long ago I was featured in
a Guardian article and I promised myself
that I wouldn’t read those comments and
one of the first things that I did read
was shamed someone that was born in
Denmark calls themself Somali and after
the initial defensiveness there you
don’t know me or my story and how dare
you
question.what I choose to call myself I
found myself asking how did you forget
the first eight years of living there
and I remember taking someone’s portrait
and we’re walking and talking and
somehow places of our birth came up and
when I said where I was born there was
the surprise and shock like I had been
hiding it and that it mattered and then
came the question we’ll have you written
about it and I hadn’t and I recognized
now an anger are not belonging in only
one place at calling myself only Somali
when I had never been to the country
when I felt like I was losing the
language and also when the elder members
of my family just didn’t recognize me so
I suspect it is why I do what I do I’m a
documenter or you can call it snooping
on my parents and they’re really loud
conversations back home and trying to
find some VC within that or you can call
it digging being nosy getting to the
bottom of things or trying to I’m a poet
which is a hard label and I’m not you
know actively writing which is a story
these days unfortunately and I’m also a
photographer which is also a hard label
when I’m not holding a camera in
someone’s face or I’m not working on a
photography series but it just is
simpler for me to call myself a
storyteller and it’s simple because for
me it just means I have more than one
medium and that if one full short of
what I need from it then I have another
at my disposal that might do the job
better writing is what I did when we
first moved to London from Denmark 14
years ago now and I made things up I
borrowed other people’s stories I wrote
myself into them and they were about me
too but I protected myself in that way I
created a distance so if anybody asked
that character or that voice couldn’t
have been me because I was only a little
Somali girl from West London who even
really knew I existed and it couldn’t
have been me because I was writing about
things that I was supposedly too young
to understand I’m the eldest daughter of
Somali parents and most of my family
lives
kenia particularly Nairobi also Mombasa
and Mandara and going to Kenya for the
first time was so bizarre because I was
meeting all these family members for the
first time and some I knew by face kind
of because their pictures had been sent
over and some of you might know the type
of picture I’m talking about Don’s with
a scenic backdrop and the artificial
flowers oh yeah with the artificial
flowers we got a lot of like waterfalls
and so I also knew by voice because they
had called really early in the morning
looking for my parents but I’ve never
been able to pin myself to any place at
all and when I say that phrase pin
myself I kinda always just imagine
someone like holding me against him up
and shout and tell me way from now and
to simplify all about and to make it
just much much easier I say I’m just
Somali but how do I explain the feeling
of guilt when I left Kenya and I left
all these family members behind knowing
I probably wouldn’t be back in a long
long time or maybe even not at all and
how do I explain the feeling of shame
that time we were stopped by officials
in Copenhagen Airport they assumed our
passports were fake
I had forgotten Danish I’d forgotten
Danish and I was deeply deeply emotional
and I didn’t understand why did it tell
me something about myself was I
convinced that I was Danish before the
incident and was I something else after
it and before then we were standing in
line at the grocery store and I must
have just glanced over at the newspaper
stand and the one in the middle had
Somali in the title and so I asked my
cousin to translate and I don’t remember
exactly what it said now but it must
have been something about us flooding
the country or looking desperate or
being criminals and I think he
underlined something really specific for
me which is that I my family people that
looked like me were unwanted and didn’t
belong and I think that’s why I haven’t
written about Denmark my small act of
defiance to reject what is rejecting me
and poetry for me means
completely honest about my
vulnerabilities my weaknesses everything
that I don’t want people to see and when
I was in Kenya for the six weeks and I
couldn’t write anything I had to find a
way to preserve the memories and also to
preserve these people who were strangers
but weren’t really strangers but well my
family and I had to find a way to
remember them and also to bring
something back to remember them by and
there were so many problems with that
idea because every one I encountered
just distrusted the camera perhaps
because they had only just met me and
didn’t trust me to capture them perhaps
because they know how wide and fast
photographs travel perhaps because to
the people in a different continent it
would be the only representation of them
they’d have and would they be able to
dispute the photograph like could they
call and say actually that’s not me
she’s lying and I remember meeting my
aunt for the first time my aunt who
raised my mom and I remember my fear
just being that we wouldn’t be able to
establish a closeness and a warmth
between us because of my really weak
Somali and I just knew I had to try my
hardest to take pictures of everything
that I could and I don’t know when it
happened or how it happened but I lost a
majority of the pictures I took while in
Kenya and some family portraits were
left thank God but mostly I was left
with pictures of the sea and no matter
how beautiful the ocean and the beaches
were or are I mourned the loss of those
pictures for a really really long time
and before that it was just flat out
deny or like I couldn’t have lost those
pictures like they have to be somewhere
and then later on it was maybe I
imagined taking them maybe like they
just you know I just didn’t take them
and the one I constantly think about
because it was one of the lost ones and
because I don’t want to lose its
composition in my head is one where my
mom is lay
in her old bed and it’s the bed that she
slept in as a young girl and the one
that she left behind when she married my
father and they moved to Denmark and I
don’t know if there was something wrong
with my camera or I just wanted to
extend the moment because I felt at
peace but I stood there until I heard
her say are you done did you get your
picture and taking sitting next to my
aunt and taking photographs of her I
started to think about photographs as a
language all on their own and I thought
I should let these photos and live as
they want without imposing my words or
my will and so there’s a picture of my
aunt where she’s like sitting and she’s
sipping her tea I’m just sitting next to
her and so when I took that picture I
thought we’re just going to take this
photo for what it is and this cup that
she’s holding in her hand isn’t going to
be a metaphor for something else nor is
her sipping this to you nor is her look
into the distance and when I was looking
at that photo yeah that one when I was
looking at that photo I also just
thought what happens when I completely
do lose the language that we need to
understand each other will like what
connects us and makes us relate beyond
blood they’re now looking at this
picture I’m also thinking of all that’s
left unspoken so the very first few
months in London and the English classes
away from the other children and the
loneliness and the accident that
occurred on the playground that led me
to sit in front of the school nurse and
she asked if I spoke English and I
remember understanding enough to nod no
and it’s always her huffing and her
puffing I remember and her disregard for
the fear that I felt and her laughed
another colleague while I sat in the
chair holding a tissue to a bloody nose
and then fast forward to me sitting in a
citizenship class and I’m being asked so
do you feel British and I say nope
absolutely not my teacher my teacher was
so taken aback by my outburst she was
like wait a minute but your accent you
speak so well firstly slide I had that
comment but my fear is the revoking of
the passport because the Danish passport
didn’t save me
interrogation at a Danish Airport and
because the only thing British or
English or you know London about me to
me anyway is my accent and for a really
long time I was obsessed with these
videos where people would wake up and
they’d completely lose the accent and
their dialect and their language and I
kind of just sat around and expected
that to happen to me too every memory is
attached to another memory so I’m
thinking of meeting my grandfather for
the first time while in Kenya my last
surviving grandparent and remember
walking into his room and there was a
radio right by his bedside and it was
playing a Somali poem and we call it
Gabi and my dad pointed at it and he
said look like it runs in the family but
there was a language barrier I didn’t
understand my grandfather and he didn’t
understand me so my father agreed to
translate my two questions number one
how old do you think you are and number
two where are all the photos and the
photo albums and after a brief exchange
my dad says to me around 80 and they’re
all gone and I remember being really
teary-eyed because I wanted to find some
way to go back and to bring those photo
albums here and it’s so naive but the
hope was that maybe then there wouldn’t
be a need to talk
maybe the photos themselves would be
enough of an explanation about where
he’d been and who he had been and how
much he’d been changed and also I just
left his room really sad every time
having gotten so close to him but only
being able to say Salaam peace be upon
you I felt changed when I returned from
Kenya I was heavier I had more stories
than I knew what to do with and I didn’t
have enough words or not the right ones
I had a better understanding I witnessed
the dysfunction the silences up close
also the familiarity and my mum’s oldest
brother sitting right next to her and
saying her name again and again and
again and
I thought I’d never see you in this life
again and said my aunt sitting next to
me and saying listen now that you made
it here don’t become a stranger again
and because London is sometimes lonely
and because hardly anyone ever comes to
visit I just witnessed another way to
live and I think sometimes we go through
this world just in battle with the way
people view us and also the way that we
view ourselves in relation to that and
along the way my you know nearly 22
years of existence I’ve discovered ways
of healing myself that didn’t require me
to have a lot of money so I had a pen
and I had a notebook and I also
converted the family camera into my own
and before there was ever a camera I
used my phone and now for me I find it
useful to find ways to belong in places
that make it hard to do so and just to
note how I’ve been shaped or changed by
these experiences in these places and I
also recognize that it’s very possible
to find home and community in places
despite feeling very unsafe at the same
time and I also recognize now how
documenting has kept me upright and sane
and I think the poems that I struggled
to write and the ones that I still carry
within me that haven’t made it onto a
page yet I think they show me where I’ve
been and how I’m still surviving and I
hope that the photographs will do that
too thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
instead of breaking the airglow inch
from the back of a small car loaded two
men in its front three at its back
missed me praise my opened legs my skirt
that sent the egg towards the floor to
do its breaking their praise my head and
its quickness a clean fold towards my
lap to dodge the second egg faster than
the first rising to see the damage spoke
the words not today Lord not today the
back of the bus stopped a new target not
my face should have stood up and ran
into the dark screamed cried asked why
II instead laughed told no one made
excuses said it was dark said it was
only a game praised being left stainless
mother would have noticed otherwise
would have said that’s it
close my door you’re never going out
again I call that poem Halloween because
it’s the time of year that this incident
happened and also because I think it
helps to blame Halloween and not my
blackness or my head job or anything
about me specifically and I wrote this
poem quite recently but it actually
happened a year ago so I do what’s
convenient mostly which is to forget
things or places or people or things
that have hurt me and there are whole
countries and territories that have
shaped to me directly or indirectly that
I’ve also conveniently forgotten about
and not that long ago I was featured in
a Guardian article and I promised myself
that I wouldn’t read those comments and
one of the first things that I did read
was shamed someone that was born in
Denmark calls themself Somali and after
the initial defensiveness there you
don’t know me or my story and how dare
you
question.what I choose to call myself I
found myself asking how did you forget
the first eight years of living there
and I remember taking someone’s portrait
and we’re walking and talking and
somehow places of our birth came up and
when I said where I was born there was
the surprise and shock like I had been
hiding it and that it mattered and then
came the question we’ll have you written
about it and I hadn’t and I recognized
now an anger are not belonging in only
one place at calling myself only Somali
when I had never been to the country
when I felt like I was losing the
language and also when the elder members
of my family just didn’t recognize me so
I suspect it is why I do what I do I’m a
documenter or you can call it snooping
on my parents and they’re really loud
conversations back home and trying to
find some VC within that or you can call
it digging being nosy getting to the
bottom of things or trying to I’m a poet
which is a hard label and I’m not you
know actively writing which is a story
these days unfortunately and I’m also a
photographer which is also a hard label
when I’m not holding a camera in
someone’s face or I’m not working on a
photography series but it just is
simpler for me to call myself a
storyteller and it’s simple because for
me it just means I have more than one
medium and that if one full short of
what I need from it then I have another
at my disposal that might do the job
better writing is what I did when we
first moved to London from Denmark 14
years ago now and I made things up I
borrowed other people’s stories I wrote
myself into them and they were about me
too but I protected myself in that way I
created a distance so if anybody asked
that character or that voice couldn’t
have been me because I was only a little
Somali girl from West London who even
really knew I existed and it couldn’t
have been me because I was writing about
things that I was supposedly too young
to understand I’m the eldest daughter of
Somali parents and most of my family
lives
kenia particularly Nairobi also Mombasa
and Mandara and going to Kenya for the
first time was so bizarre because I was
meeting all these family members for the
first time and some I knew by face kind
of because their pictures had been sent
over and some of you might know the type
of picture I’m talking about Don’s with
a scenic backdrop and the artificial
flowers oh yeah with the artificial
flowers we got a lot of like waterfalls
and so I also knew by voice because they
had called really early in the morning
looking for my parents but I’ve never
been able to pin myself to any place at
all and when I say that phrase pin
myself I kinda always just imagine
someone like holding me against him up
and shout and tell me way from now and
to simplify all about and to make it
just much much easier I say I’m just
Somali but how do I explain the feeling
of guilt when I left Kenya and I left
all these family members behind knowing
I probably wouldn’t be back in a long
long time or maybe even not at all and
how do I explain the feeling of shame
that time we were stopped by officials
in Copenhagen Airport they assumed our
passports were fake
I had forgotten Danish I’d forgotten
Danish and I was deeply deeply emotional
and I didn’t understand why did it tell
me something about myself was I
convinced that I was Danish before the
incident and was I something else after
it and before then we were standing in
line at the grocery store and I must
have just glanced over at the newspaper
stand and the one in the middle had
Somali in the title and so I asked my
cousin to translate and I don’t remember
exactly what it said now but it must
have been something about us flooding
the country or looking desperate or
being criminals and I think he
underlined something really specific for
me which is that I my family people that
looked like me were unwanted and didn’t
belong and I think that’s why I haven’t
written about Denmark my small act of
defiance to reject what is rejecting me
and poetry for me means
completely honest about my
vulnerabilities my weaknesses everything
that I don’t want people to see and when
I was in Kenya for the six weeks and I
couldn’t write anything I had to find a
way to preserve the memories and also to
preserve these people who were strangers
but weren’t really strangers but well my
family and I had to find a way to
remember them and also to bring
something back to remember them by and
there were so many problems with that
idea because every one I encountered
just distrusted the camera perhaps
because they had only just met me and
didn’t trust me to capture them perhaps
because they know how wide and fast
photographs travel perhaps because to
the people in a different continent it
would be the only representation of them
they’d have and would they be able to
dispute the photograph like could they
call and say actually that’s not me
she’s lying and I remember meeting my
aunt for the first time my aunt who
raised my mom and I remember my fear
just being that we wouldn’t be able to
establish a closeness and a warmth
between us because of my really weak
Somali and I just knew I had to try my
hardest to take pictures of everything
that I could and I don’t know when it
happened or how it happened but I lost a
majority of the pictures I took while in
Kenya and some family portraits were
left thank God but mostly I was left
with pictures of the sea and no matter
how beautiful the ocean and the beaches
were or are I mourned the loss of those
pictures for a really really long time
and before that it was just flat out
deny or like I couldn’t have lost those
pictures like they have to be somewhere
and then later on it was maybe I
imagined taking them maybe like they
just you know I just didn’t take them
and the one I constantly think about
because it was one of the lost ones and
because I don’t want to lose its
composition in my head is one where my
mom is lay
in her old bed and it’s the bed that she
slept in as a young girl and the one
that she left behind when she married my
father and they moved to Denmark and I
don’t know if there was something wrong
with my camera or I just wanted to
extend the moment because I felt at
peace but I stood there until I heard
her say are you done did you get your
picture and taking sitting next to my
aunt and taking photographs of her I
started to think about photographs as a
language all on their own and I thought
I should let these photos and live as
they want without imposing my words or
my will and so there’s a picture of my
aunt where she’s like sitting and she’s
sipping her tea I’m just sitting next to
her and so when I took that picture I
thought we’re just going to take this
photo for what it is and this cup that
she’s holding in her hand isn’t going to
be a metaphor for something else nor is
her sipping this to you nor is her look
into the distance and when I was looking
at that photo yeah that one when I was
looking at that photo I also just
thought what happens when I completely
do lose the language that we need to
understand each other will like what
connects us and makes us relate beyond
blood they’re now looking at this
picture I’m also thinking of all that’s
left unspoken so the very first few
months in London and the English classes
away from the other children and the
loneliness and the accident that
occurred on the playground that led me
to sit in front of the school nurse and
she asked if I spoke English and I
remember understanding enough to nod no
and it’s always her huffing and her
puffing I remember and her disregard for
the fear that I felt and her laughed
another colleague while I sat in the
chair holding a tissue to a bloody nose
and then fast forward to me sitting in a
citizenship class and I’m being asked so
do you feel British and I say nope
absolutely not my teacher my teacher was
so taken aback by my outburst she was
like wait a minute but your accent you
speak so well firstly slide I had that
comment but my fear is the revoking of
the passport because the Danish passport
didn’t save me
interrogation at a Danish Airport and
because the only thing British or
English or you know London about me to
me anyway is my accent and for a really
long time I was obsessed with these
videos where people would wake up and
they’d completely lose the accent and
their dialect and their language and I
kind of just sat around and expected
that to happen to me too every memory is
attached to another memory so I’m
thinking of meeting my grandfather for
the first time while in Kenya my last
surviving grandparent and remember
walking into his room and there was a
radio right by his bedside and it was
playing a Somali poem and we call it
Gabi and my dad pointed at it and he
said look like it runs in the family but
there was a language barrier I didn’t
understand my grandfather and he didn’t
understand me so my father agreed to
translate my two questions number one
how old do you think you are and number
two where are all the photos and the
photo albums and after a brief exchange
my dad says to me around 80 and they’re
all gone and I remember being really
teary-eyed because I wanted to find some
way to go back and to bring those photo
albums here and it’s so naive but the
hope was that maybe then there wouldn’t
be a need to talk
maybe the photos themselves would be
enough of an explanation about where
he’d been and who he had been and how
much he’d been changed and also I just
left his room really sad every time
having gotten so close to him but only
being able to say Salaam peace be upon
you I felt changed when I returned from
Kenya I was heavier I had more stories
than I knew what to do with and I didn’t
have enough words or not the right ones
I had a better understanding I witnessed
the dysfunction the silences up close
also the familiarity and my mum’s oldest
brother sitting right next to her and
saying her name again and again and
again and
I thought I’d never see you in this life
again and said my aunt sitting next to
me and saying listen now that you made
it here don’t become a stranger again
and because London is sometimes lonely
and because hardly anyone ever comes to
visit I just witnessed another way to
live and I think sometimes we go through
this world just in battle with the way
people view us and also the way that we
view ourselves in relation to that and
along the way my you know nearly 22
years of existence I’ve discovered ways
of healing myself that didn’t require me
to have a lot of money so I had a pen
and I had a notebook and I also
converted the family camera into my own
and before there was ever a camera I
used my phone and now for me I find it
useful to find ways to belong in places
that make it hard to do so and just to
note how I’ve been shaped or changed by
these experiences in these places and I
also recognize that it’s very possible
to find home and community in places
despite feeling very unsafe at the same
time and I also recognize now how
documenting has kept me upright and sane
and I think the poems that I struggled
to write and the ones that I still carry
within me that haven’t made it onto a
page yet I think they show me where I’ve
been and how I’m still surviving and I
hope that the photographs will do that
too thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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