Wander

Felicia Olusanya aka FELISPEAKS, is a Nigerian-Irish poet, performer and playwright from Co. Longford who’s currently featured on the Leaving Cert English Curriculum with their poem ‘ For Our Mothers' . They’re a member of WeAreGriot , a poetry collective consisting of herself, Dagogo Hart & Samuel Yakura  (who we talked to in the last episode) and a board member of Poetry Ireland .  They...

Samuel Yakura is a Nigerian born writer, poet and performing artist living in Ireland. He's a multiple-time Slam Champion both in Nigeria and in Ireland, winning Slam competitions like ALS, OxFam, and Talkatives. He's a member with the WeareGriot Poetry Collective who run regular poetry/rap and hip hop events in Dublin. He’s also done commissioned works for the likes of Summer in the city,...

Sandrine Ndahiro is a writer and activist who moved to Ireland in 2006 from Rwanda. She’s the co-founder of Unsliencing Black Voices and co-editor of Unapologetic - an interdisciplinary, cultural literary magazine that celebrates marginalised voices who tackle social issues here in Ireland. The first issue of Unapologetic featured literature, artwork and articles on the theme of ‘Change Makers’, a...

Shehab is a poet from Yemen who spent time in Napier Barracks, Folkeston in the UK. It’s one of two military sites the UK government send asylum seekers. Residents describe it as worse than a prison. Where nobody knows how long they’ll be kept there. There’s been several court cases to try and close the place down, citing poor sanitation, lack of access to adequate medical care and legal advice, a...

Iya Kiva is a fantastic Ukrainian poet, translator and journalist. She’s been translated into several languages, and is the author of two poetry collections - ‘Further From Heaven’ and ‘The First Page of Winter’. She’s won numerous awards for her work including at the International Poetry Festival "Emigrant Lyre", the LitAccent-2019 award, and many more. Iya had to leave Donetsk in 2014, when Russ...

Njamba Koffi is a talented poet, musician and writer originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo. When Njamba was 11, he and his family, like millions of others, had to flee the DRC. They stayed briefly in Tanzania, then in Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi until finally settling in Eswatini, where Njamba helped set up a youth group in the camp. His book, ‘Refugee, The Journey Much Desired’ is b...

Mayyu Ali’s poetry book, ‘Exodus - Between Genocide and Me’ describes his experiences and his journey escaping to the relative safety of Coxs Bazaar refugee camp in Bangladesh. Around 700,000 Rohingya people fled in 2017, joining about 300,000 Rohingya men, women and children who had arrived after fleeing earlier waves of violence. Mayyu is one of the people who escaped in 2017. We talk about the...

Aryan Ashory is a hugely talented and inspiring young Afghan poet, filmmaker and human rights activist. She writes in four languages and her poetry was recently featured on PBS America. She reads several of her poems, including  ‘Hey Talib a Stain of Shame in Our History', ‘Don’t Kick Us Like a Ball’ and ‘Like a Black Ceiling Dark and Silent’ which explore, among other things, the way women a...

Dawood Saleh is the author of ‘Walking Alone’, an account of the Yazidi genocide. He’s a humanitarian activist, a genocide survivor and the host of The Dawood Show on Youtube which focuses on Yazidi stories. ‘Walking Alone’ is a powerful account, based on many interviews Dawood did with survivors of the genocide. And of course, his own personal experience. And he reads several of the poems fr...

Welcome back to Wander! And the second season with poets from Afghanistan,  the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen and Ukraine. A Rohingya poet, a Yazidi writer, and this episode’s guest, a Syrian British poet of Kurdish origin. Amir Darwish has published two collections of poetry  - ‘Don’t Forget The Couscous’ and ‘Dear Refugee’, and the first part of his autobiography, ‘From Alepp...

Two Syrian artists with very different stories, both creating poetry in exile in Jordan and Istanbul. This episode is a special one with two parts. The first part comes from Zataari refugee camp in Jordan, with a poet called Nour al Hariri. Nour writes poetry and rap about human rights issues that are close to her heart - especially around women’s rights to education, the issue of child labour and...

Poetry from the camps of Western Sahara, with my guest Sam Berkson , who together with Saharawi artist and translator Mohamed Suleiman collected translations of these poems in ‘Settled Wanderers’ (published by Influx Press). It’s the first collection in English of poets such as Beyibouh Al Haj, Mahmoud Khadri, Badi and Al Khadra, and gives us a unique insight into the political situation for the S...

From Dzaleka refugee camp in Malawi, with poet, musician and community activist Tresor Mpauni. We talk about his early influences growing up in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - including African folk tales and music - how he joined a boyband, discovered French rap music, and started writing his own music and poetry. He tells me about why he had to leave the DRC, even though he had a p...

Originally from Afghanistan, Parwana Amiri has written extensively about her time in Moria Refugee Camp, and now about life in Ritsona camp in Greece, where she lives with her family. She teaches at  Wave of Hope for the Future - a school founded by refugees - is a coordinator of Youth Refugee Movement and has published a collection called ‘Letters To The World From Moria’. She publishes new...