İlhan Sami Çomak is an award-winning and internationally regarded Kurdish poet who was imprisoned in Istanbul for 30 years, before finally being released in 2024. This year, to mark the Day of the Imprisoned Writer, Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann is honoured to have Çomak joining us in person, along with his interpreter Ipek Ozel, for an afternoon in conversation with author and Co-Chair of Irish PEN/PEN na hEireann, Liz McManus.
İlhan Sami Çomak is a prize-winning poet, recipient of the Sennur Sezer poetry prize (1999), the Metin Altıok prize (2022) and the Norwegian Authors’ Union Freedom of Expression award (2022) member of the Writers’ Union of Turkey, prize-winning playwright and honorary member of the following PEN Centres: PEN Norway, Wales PEN Cymru, Irish PEN Na H’Eireann, PEN Sydney and PEN Austria. He has been in poetic conversation by letter with over 80 world-renowned poets and has a huge poetic family extending all over the globe.
Liz McManus is a novelist and short story writer. She was born in Montreal, Canada. She grew up in Ireland and has worked as an architect in Derry, Galway and Dublin. She was a columnist for seven years with The Sunday Tribune newspaper. Her literary awards include Listowel, Irish Pen (Short Story awards) and the Hennessy Award for New Irish Writing. Her first novel, Acts of Subversion (Poolbeg) was shortlisted for the Aer Lingus/Irish Times award. A Shadow in the Yard (Ward River Press) her second novel was published in 2013 and her latest novel When Things Come to Light (Arlen House) was published in 2013. She was a member of Wicklow Co Council and was elected to Dail Eireann in 1992 and Minister of State for Housing and Urban Renewal (1994-97). She chaired the Commission on the Needs of Travellers and has been a long-time campaigner for Women’s Rights. She has an MPhil with Distinction in Creative Writing (TCD 2012). Residencies include the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig and the Hienrich Boll cottage on Achill Island. In July 2024 she was awarded outright a PhD in Philosophy (Creative Writing) at the University of Limerick. Currently she is Co Chair of Irish PEN/PEN na hEireann.
Ipek Ozel is an academic at the faculty of law, with a focus on human rights, law and prison studies. Lecturing for the last 27 years. Advocating for students in prisons for the last 15 years. Ipek has served as a McKenzie Friend to 8 students who were long term prisoners and has followed up on many trials of students charged with political crimes. She has been one of Ilhan Sami’s staunchest supporters and friends.
This year, to mark the Day of the Imprisoned Writer, Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann and Dublin Book Festival are proud to dedicate the event to our first Honorary Member, Kurdish poet İlhan Sami Çomak, one of Turkey’s longest-serving political prisoners. Joining us will be: Paula Meehan, poet; Caroline Stockford, PEN Norway, İlhan’s friend and translator; Ipek Ozel, İlhan’s McKenzie Friend; Iggy McGovern, poet and Board member of Irish PEN, and Burhan Sönmez, President of PEN International. With artwork by Gianluca Costantini@channeldraw on display.
Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann gratefully acknowledges the generous support of Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.
The event is FREE but booking is essential. Please click here.
Paula Meehan was born and raised in Dublin’s north inner city. Her award-winning poetry has garnered widespread popular and critical acclaim. She has been translated into many languages; recently Japanese & Dutch with collections forthcoming in Spanish, Polish, Greek. Her poetry has been scored for choirs, for solo voice, has been made into songs by artists from divers traditions — the folk, including the legendary Christy Moore, and the avant garde; has been made into wee films; has been danced; has been inflicted on the youth of the country in school & university. Has been 8/1 to come up on the Leaving Cert. She was Ireland Professor of Poetry, 2013–2016 and Imaginary Bonnets with Real Bees in Them, her public lectures from the Chair, are published by UCD Press. Recent publications are As If By Magic: Selected Poems, (2020) and The Solace of Artemis (2023) which received the Pigott Prize for Poetry, 2024. They are published by Dedalus Press, Dublin.
Caroline Stockford is a poet and translator of Turkish literature. She works as Turkey Adviser for PEN Norway and has led the campaign for Ilhan since 2019. She and other translators produced his selected works in English, Separated from the Sun, in 2021 (available from Smokestack books) and an anthology of world poets writing for Ilhan is on the way.
Ipek Ozel is an academic at the faculty of law, with a focus on human rights, law and prison studies. Lecturing for the last 27 years. Advocating for students in prisons for the last 15 years. Ipek has served as a McKenzie Friend to 8 students who were long term prisoners and has followed up on many trials of students charged with political crimes. She has been one of Ilhan Sami’s staunchest supporters and friends.
Iggy McGovern was born in 1948 in Coleraine; since 1979 he has resided in Dublin, where he lectured in Physics at Trinity College, retiring in 2013. He has published three collections of poetry with Dedalus Press: The King of Suburbia (2005), Safe House (2010) and The Eyes of Isaac Newton (2017). Other publications include A Mystic Dream of 4 (2013) and Making Waves (2019), both with Quaternia Press. Awards include The Hennessy Award for Poetry and The Glen Dimplex New Writers Award for Poetry.
Burhan Sönmez is the author of six novels. He is president of PEN International and a Senior Member of Hughes Hall College and Trinity College, University of Cambridge. His novels have been translated into forty-eight languages and received international prizes, including the EBRD Literature Prize and Vaclav Havel Library Award. He was born in Turkey and grew up speaking Turkish and Kurdish. He worked as a lawyer in Istanbul before going to Britain for political reasons and living there in exile for several years. He has been on the judging panel of several events, including Inge Feltrinelli Prize and Geneva International Film Festival and written for press such as La Repubblica, Der Spiegel and The Guardian. He has translated the poetry book of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake into Turkish. Having written five novels in Turkish, he began to write in his mother tongue, Kurdish, with his last novel Lovers of Franz K. He lives between Cambridge and Istanbul.
This year, to mark the Day of the Imprisoned Writer, Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann and Dublin Book Festival are proud to dedicate the event to our first Honorary Member, Kurdish poet İlhan Sami Çomak, one of Turkey’s longest-serving political prisoners. Joining us will be: Paula Meehan, poet; Caroline Stockford, PEN Norway, İlhan’s friend and translator; Ipek Ozel, İlhan’s McKenzie Friend; Iggy McGovern, poet and Board member of Irish PEN, and Burhan Sönmez, President of PEN International. With artwork by Gianluca Costantini@channeldraw on display.
Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann gratefully acknowledges the generous support of Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.
The event is FREE but booking is essential. Please click here.
Paula Meehan was born and raised in Dublin’s north inner city. Her award-winning poetry has garnered widespread popular and critical acclaim. She has been translated into many languages; recently Japanese & Dutch with collections forthcoming in Spanish, Polish, Greek. Her poetry has been scored for choirs, for solo voice, has been made into songs by artists from divers traditions — the folk, including the legendary Christy Moore, and the avant garde; has been made into wee films; has been danced; has been inflicted on the youth of the country in school & university. Has been 8/1 to come up on the Leaving Cert. She was Ireland Professor of Poetry, 2013–2016 and Imaginary Bonnets with Real Bees in Them, her public lectures from the Chair, are published by UCD Press. Recent publications are As If By Magic: Selected Poems, (2020) and The Solace of Artemis (2023) which received the Pigott Prize for Poetry, 2024. They are published by Dedalus Press, Dublin.
Caroline Stockford is a poet and translator of Turkish literature. She works as Turkey Adviser for PEN Norway and has led the campaign for Ilhan since 2019. She and other translators produced his selected works in English, Separated from the Sun, in 2021 (available from Smokestack books) and an anthology of world poets writing for Ilhan is on the way.
Ipek Ozel is an academic at the faculty of law, with a focus on human rights, law and prison studies. Lecturing for the last 27 years. Advocating for students in prisons for the last 15 years. Ipek has served as a McKenzie Friend to 8 students who were long term prisoners and has followed up on many trials of students charged with political crimes. She has been one of Ilhan Sami’s staunchest supporters and friends.
Iggy McGovern was born in 1948 in Coleraine; since 1979 he has resided in Dublin, where he lectured in Physics at Trinity College, retiring in 2013. He has published three collections of poetry with Dedalus Press: The King of Suburbia (2005), Safe House (2010) and The Eyes of Isaac Newton (2017). Other publications include A Mystic Dream of 4 (2013) and Making Waves (2019), both with Quaternia Press. Awards include The Hennessy Award for Poetry and The Glen Dimplex New Writers Award for Poetry.
Burhan Sönmez is the author of six novels. He is president of PEN International and a Senior Member of Hughes Hall College and Trinity College, University of Cambridge. His novels have been translated into forty-eight languages and received international prizes, including the EBRD Literature Prize and Vaclav Havel Library Award. He was born in Turkey and grew up speaking Turkish and Kurdish. He worked as a lawyer in Istanbul before going to Britain for political reasons and living there in exile for several years. He has been on the judging panel of several events, including Inge Feltrinelli Prize and Geneva International Film Festival and written for press such as La Repubblica, Der Spiegel and The Guardian. He has translated the poetry book of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake into Turkish. Having written five novels in Turkish, he began to write in his mother tongue, Kurdish, with his last novel Lovers of Franz K. He lives between Cambridge and Istanbul.
“Take me away from this stagnation I’ve seen so much of the abyss. Long, so long I’ve stared at it – that void is just repetition. It’s time for me to say I’m a bird that is showered in rain It’s time to breathe the smell of soil, fill with it, grow again. Know me by my love, not by my loneliness. Comprehend me from what I long for, not by what I have lost. Understand me by my childhood, not by the me of today. I’m searching for you.”
– From ‘Freedom’ by Ilhan Sami Çomak Translated by Caroline Stockford
Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann, PEN Norway, the undersigned PEN Centres (PEN statement here) and PEN International, express their extreme dismay and are saddened at the unanimous decision of the parole board convened at Silivri Prison, Istanbul, to rule against the release due on 21 August 2024 of Turkey’s longest-serving student prisoner, internationally-regarded Kurdish poet and honorary Irish PEN member Ilhan Sami Çomak.
Çomak was due for release on parole on 21 August 2024. However, the parole board, to which a new member was added just one week prior to its final convening, unanimously ruled to deny Çomak his freedom despite his declaration to dedicate his life to the pursuit of literature and poetry.
Write a letter to Ilhan:
We invite all poets and writers as well as members of the public worldwide to write to İlhan, sending a non-political message of solidarity, in Turkish only by postcard to the following address:
İlhan Sami Çomak Silivri 5 No.lu L Tipi Kapalı Cezaevi C12 Silivri İstanbul Turkey
Sample message below: Dear Ilhan, We hope that, soon you will be reunited with your freedom and that it will be a new start for you and your poetry. We send you our respect and the love of friendship. Stay strong, we send you greetings from your PEN family. You are never alone. With solidarity,
Sevgili İlhan, Çok yakında özgürlüğünüze kavuşacağınız, siz ve şiiriniz için yeni bir başlangıcın olmasını ümit ediyoruz. Size, sonsuz saygılarımızı ve dostça sevgilerimizi ileriyoruz. Güçlü kalın, PEN’deki aileniz olarak size selamlıyoruz! Asla yalnız değilsiniz. Dayanışmayla,
İlhan Sami Çomak is a prize-winning poet, recipient of the Sennur Sezer poetry prize (1999), the Metin Altıok prize (2022) and the Norwegian Authors’ Union Freedom of Expression award (2022) member of the Writers’ Union of Turkey, prize-winning playwright and honorary member of the following PEN Centres: PEN Norway, Wales PEN Cymru, Irish PEN Na H’Eireann, PEN Sydney and PEN Austria. He has been in poetic conversation by letter with over 80 world-renowned poets and has a huge poetic family extending all over the globe.
The prize-winning Kurdish poet Ilhan Sami Çomak has been in prison in Turkey for 28 years, since he was 22 years old. During his confinement, Çomak has written eight award-winning collections of poetry. His first collection in English, Separated from the Sun, edited and with an Introduction by Welsh poet and translator Caroline Stockford, was published in September by Smokestack Books. During his confinement, Çomak has become a highly-respected poet, with a growing international reputation.
Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann is honoured Ilhan Sami Çomak has accepted to be our first Honorary Member. Please find below Ilhan Sami Çomak’s powerful letter to Irish PEN members.
July 2022,
Dear Friends,
I think the reason why people make so many mistakes in life is that they have no access to the possibilities of words, to the opportunity to speak and write. In fact, speaking is a youthful behaviour, while silence is ancient. But it is this youthfulness, above all else, that has the capacity to change the world or us as people.
However you look at it, words and writing are the resistance point as we reach into the infinitely distant expanse that we call the future. When those of us who reject the tyranny of the present seek to invoke the new and beautiful, words are the most viable and humane invention we have at our disposable. I’m sure you already know this story, but I feel the need to share it with you again as it has had a great effect on me: According to belief, Saint Patrick prayed with such fervour and sincerity in the yard of the church on Church Island that the imprint of his knees was left in the ground stones. I think this is a very accurate representation of the proven power of words – be it prayers, poetry or novels – to bring about change and the place this has in our lives. That’s why I sincerely believe that words and writing are a critical factor in our tenacious grip on life.
As far as I can see, this is the reason why every poet and writer writes – more than anything, it is to change their life and themselves in line with their beliefs.
I write poetry for the sake of life and to stay alive, for my deep connection with life, because I miss life, because it brings life to my cell, because I love life and people with a passion and because I believe in life and myself. The continuity of this belief is all I have.
Discovering and understanding life through poetry, together with the persistence of my efforts, eventually altered me and my expectations from life. In fact, life has changed with me. Over these 28 years of unrelenting confinement, I missed life so much, I spoke of so many longings that in the end the longings took on a life of their own; with poetry, above all with poetry, I woke up to life.
Poetry took me by the hand; as I negotiated the unending contradiction of living between the heavy, poisonous pain of my experiences and the beauty and lightness of the things I wanted to experience, it gave me the acute insight I needed to keep my balance. It protected me from reality by supporting my dreams in the circumstances of this place, where time and space are defiled by constant repetition and high walls. The fact that I am still alive and well, despite all these years of unjust confinement, is undoubtedly due to my unrelenting efforts to reach the life envisioned by poetry, and through the act of writing about them, to reach all the things I miss. I may not have the fervent power of St Patrick, but I do have avid, tireless desires that know where and what they should gravitate towards. I want to live; that is why I cling to words and writing, the greatest invention of humankind.
Dear friends, despite this immense ordeal, my voice and my words crossed the seas to reach you. You called out to me with your friendship, taking my hand and my poetry. I see that as proof of poetry’s mighty heart, which can overcome any adversity. And I also see this call as a beacon, signalling that somewhere in every time and space there are warm-hearted people who know what is good, who create goodness and recognise the capacity of words and imagination to change the world.
It is an honour to be accepted as a member of Irish PEN. The step you have taken has given me great strength. Now I am closer to the outside, nearer to clean, fresh air. It’s beautiful to feel the warmth of your hand of friendship! I thank you with all my heart.
It gives us enormous pleasure to announce that imprisoned Kurdish poet Ilhan Sami Çomak has agreed to become our first Honorary member. Ilhan received many cards from Irish PEN members following our recent PEN Friends event. These were translated and brought to him by Ipek Ozel. Thank you, Ipek!
This event, organised by Letters With Wings, was dedicated to the women artists Chimengul Awut (award-winning Uyghur poet) and Nûdem Durak (a folk-musician of Kurdish origin who is a political prisoner in Turkey).
Participants included: Lia Mills (Chair of Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann), Catherine Dunne, Celia de Fréine, Kate Ennals, Moyra Donaldson, Evgeny Shtorn, Gianluca Costantini (activist, cartoonist and visual artist), Antje Stehn (Rucksack, A Global Poetry Patchwork), Simone Theiss (Westminster and Bayswater Amnesty International Group) and Letters with wings’ poet members Nandi Jola, Csilla Toldy and Viviana Fiorentino. It was a powerful, inspirational evening and a great privilege to be involved at all.
(With thanks to the Imagine! Belfast Festival & its production staff: Richard, Emma, Gillian)
***
Lia Mills:
First, I want to acknowledge the horrific circumstances and the courage of the two women who this event has been set up to honour, Chimengul Awut and Nudem Durak. I also want to acknowledge what’s happening in Myanmar, where poets and artists are included among the hundreds of people imprisoned and killed during unarmed protests. Other readers will read the work of Burmese poets tonight, I leave that to them.
We take so much for granted, including the simple ability to dial into an event like this and speak freely, without fear of detention, or torture, or the fear of losing everything, our jobs, our homes, our lives.
You might ask, what difference can an event like this make? What is their point? If we are free to speak and other people aren’t, how does one of those facts meet the other?
At its most basic level, an event such as this introduces us to people we might otherwise never hear about – people just like us, except that they live in more oppressive, authoritarian states; people whose freedom can be taken away because they write or say or paint what they think.
What you do with the knowledge you gain here is up to you. The problem might seem too big for ordinary individuals to solve. But one positive step you can take is to decide to write to someone who is in prison, tonight. Maybe someone whose words you will meet for the first time in the next hour.
You may never know the difference your letter makes, but the testimonies of prisoners whose cases are monitored by PEN International tell us that a note or a card from a complete stranger can make the difference between light and darkness in a prison cell, just as art and literature can.
*
PEN International was founded on the principle of goodwill and fellowship among people who care about literature and the freedom of expression on which democracy depends. One of the things PEN has become known for is that its members write letters to writers and artists who have been imprisoned because of their work. The same principle is behind Letters With Wings, who have organised this event. (You might consider joining either or both of us.)
So one thing an event like this can do is to tell you – who are listening – about some of these courageous writers and activists and, importantly, encourage you to reach out and support someone who has been deprived of the kind of freedom we take for granted.
Prisoners report that such letters make all the difference to them during the unending, worrying days when they are cut off from family, friends, their future. It helps to know that people in the wider world know where they are and pay attention to what happens to them. It helps to remember that there is a wider world, waiting for their return.
***
One question we have been asked to address here is: Why do some governments fear the arts?
I think it’s because the arts nurture and express human faculties that can’t be obliterated by any external force or authoritarian regime: the imagination, the ability to empathise with other people; the capacities for love, hope, faith, idealism. The arts express what it is to be human in our time and place, and that brings news not everyone wants to hear, news that certain governments in particular want to suppress. So they bring in censorship, intimidation, vexatious lawsuits, punitive laws.
They can try to suppress artistic freedom along with every other kind, but with art that’s harder to do – because the work art does is not always out in the open. Art doesn’t just live in the moment when an image is seen, understood and felt, or when a poem is read. Much of it happens in our minds and hearts, in our imaginations. It takes root in us. It lives on when the moment has passed. You can’t imprison a story, or kill a song.
I’m going to read some examples that demonstrate the extraordinary resilience and power that prisoners find in literature. The writing they continue to do against overwhelming odds is not bitter, or negative; it’s not about recrimination or hatred. These voices soar, they are free. They rise far above their immediate circumstance and call us to join them, if we dare.
To illustrate the principle, here is a poem by Eva Gore Booth, a passionate advocate of the principles of non-violence, written in 1918 to her sister Constance (Markievicz) who was in prison. The sisters had an arrangement that they would think about each other at the same time every day. The poem says that even when we are separated by prison walls, we can reach each other.
Comrades
The peaceful night that round me flows, Breaks through your iron prison doors, Free through the world your spirit goes, Forbidden hands are clasping yours.
The wind is our confederate, The night has left her doors ajar, We meet beyond earth’s barred gate, Where all the world’s wild Rebels are Eva Gore-Booth, Broken Glory 1918
***
Next I’ll read a poem by Ilhan Sami Çomak. Imprisoned in Turkey at the age of 22, 27 years ago. Ilhan is held in solitary confinement.
27 years. Alone in a cell.
What could he possibly write about? Life, love, light and colour. His mind, his imagination, his words are free. PEN Norway/Norsk PEN are running a brilliant campaign for Ilhan, which includes people writing poems for him, to which he responds with poems of his own. I urge you to visit the website and learn more (details in the chat).
What Good is Reading Poetry?
It’s good for making hands fine enough to touch silk And for feeling the moment that stone turns impatient
It’s good for looking in the eyes of hungry cats And extending curiosity out among all animals
It is the darkness that makes my night voice heard And makes it easier to say ‘the moon will come up late’
For years my feet have been cold, so cold When I say this, it helps me compare winter to snow
Spring will begin today, I know Reading poetry helps me believe that feeling
It reminds me I don’t miss the Istanbul bustle Lets me know things to tell my love in a letter
When I’m tired, to stop and rest, not to drink water when I sweat, It helps me to cry and fret over wildfires, over death
To know anger’s reserved just for evil To stop and ask forgiveness of women
To feel youth when young, to understand it later on, It’s good for helping me to sit and write new poems
Good for helping me seduce and flatter Then to kiss my love when the leaves turn yellow Ilhan Sami Çomak
Translated by Caroline Stockford (reproduced with permission)
***
And finally, from writer and journalist Ahmet Altan, currently serving a 10 ½ year sentence in Turkey after being in pre-trial detention for over 3 years (he is 71 years old)
From I Will Never See the World Again
‘I am a writer. I am neither where I am nor where I am not Wherever you lock me up I will travel the world with the wings of my infinite mind. Besides, I have friends all around the world who help me travel, most of whom I have never met. Each eye that reads what I have written, each voice that repeats my name holds my hand like a little cloud and flies me over the lowlands, the springs, the forests, the seas, the towns and their streets. They host me quietly in their houses, in their halls, in their rooms. I travel the whole world in a prison cell. (…) I am writing this in a prison cell. But I am not in prison. I am a writer. I am neither where I am nor where I am not. You can imprison me but you cannot keep me here. Because, like all writers, I have magic. I can pass through your walls with ease.’ (Granta. pp. 211-2)
***
And that, I think, is exactly why certain governments fear the arts.
Thank you.
Details/Useful sites
Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann: irishpen.com (Website under revision, please be patient. Current campaigns are listed under “News”)
