Interview with the poet, Jennifer Langer

 

I’m delighted to welcome Jennifer Langer to Troutie McFish Tales to talk about her newly released poetry chapbook, The Search, which I had the privilege of editing for Victorina Press.

THE POET

A long-time writer of poetry for herself, Jennifer’s work has been published in various magazines and she is a member of an inspiring poets’ collective. Jennifer is editor of four anthologies of exiled literature: The Bend in the Road: Refugees Writing (1997), Crossing the Border: Exiled Women’s Writing (2002), The Silver Throat of the Moon: Writing in Exile (2005) and If Salt Has Memory: Contemporary Jewish Exiled Writing (2008) all published by Five Leaves. She is lead editor of Resistance: Voices of Exiled Writers (Palewell, 2020). She is founding director of Exiled Writers Ink which brings together established and developing migrant and refugee writers from repressive regimes and war-torn situations. Established in 2000, it is an ever-expanding organisation that provides a space for exiled writers to be heard, develops and promotes their creative literary expression, and crucially advocates human rights through literature and literary activism. 

Previously co-editor of Exiled Ink magazine, she has written numerous articles on aspects of the literature of exile and has presented papers both in the UK and overseas, ranging from Casablanca to Gothenburg. She also reviews poetry, memoir, fiction and research focusing on migration, exile, memory and identity. She holds a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in Cultural Memory and Literature by Exiled Iranian Jewish Women, and an MA in Cultural Memory from the School of Advanced Study, University of London. She is currently a SOAS Research Associate. Jennifer is the daughter of refugees who escaped from Nazi Germany and who met in England. Her parents were both the sole survivors of their respective families.

THE COLLECTION

The Search is an exploration of the poet’s complex sense of identity as the daughter of German Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany for Britain. Crucially, her sensibility of otherness is dialogically engaged with contemporary refugees and the oppressed. Born of the history of loss and of refugee roots, the poet dreams of a lost world attempting to snatch at fragments and striving to create a narrative yet she is also compelled to confront current tensions arising from the diverse facets of this identity. Engaged in the attempt to resist negative representations projected onto herself, she struggles to define herself.

 You can order a copy of The Search HERE

 THE INTERVIEW

In the very personal opening poem of The Search, a friend asks “where do you really come from?”, a question which heralds the main theme of your collection. As the daughter of German Jewish refugees, your identity is complex, and I see these multi-layered and immersive poems as an attempt to make sense of the past and to discover your true self. Was that a deliberate journey you embarked upon, or did the collection grow in a more organic way?

Born of the history of memory of loss, I dreamed of a lost world and snatched at fragments, striving to create a narrative. I have written numerous articles, particularly for Second Generation Voices, about my insights, experiences and journeys of exploration over the years. As I delve deeper and deeper into my parents’ and relatives’ stories and fates, I feel more and more connected to the once anonymous faces in the photos I first saw as a child. Somehow, I felt the emotional need to articulate my search, pain and mourning in poetry. These are the poems that I wrote over a long period. To conclude, I would say that the collection grew in an organic way.

You don’t limit yourself to examining your own experiences in these poems, you also cast your net much wider, to show us an entire world of displaced and exiled characters. Where did the inspiration come from for these poems – and are some of them based on people and situations you have encountered when travelling?

Some of the travelling has taken the form of a search for roots over many years. My visceral feelings of outsiderness and difference have caused me to empathise with the marginalised of society, particularly asylum seekers and refugees. Frequently there is a dialogical engagement between poems about my background and poems about ‘the other’ so that some of my poetry reveals a concern with outsiders and victims such as the Herero tribe, Calais migrants and the Palestinians, amongst others. As a traveller you are an outsider in a new environment observing with detachment, unless of course, one’s own identity feels intertwined, as it was in Namibia.

You are the Director of Exiled Writers Ink – could you tell us a little bit about that. How important is EWI to you and how has it informed your writing over the years?

As the founding director of an organisation that was never planned but has grown enormously over the years to meet a need, EWI is very important to me. Established in 2000, Exiled Writers Ink recently celebrated its 20th anniversary with an anthology titled Resistance.

The organisation brings together established, emerging and aspiring refugee and migrant writers. It develops and promotes their creative literary expression, encourages cross-cultural dialogue, and advocates human rights through literature and literary activism. Our work comprises creative writing workshops, training, live literature performance events, theatre, mentoring, translation, publications, symposia, poetry competitions and road shows. Our theatre projects have included productions in partnership, performed in the UK and in Poland, Italy and Bosnia.

Having read and listened to the work of exiled writers over many years, as well as having shared experiences with them such as running workshops together, I have been privileged to gain insights into their experiences and sensibility, be it nostalgia, anger, trauma, the state of exile and more, including love. I have also absorbed a richesse of imagery and form such as ghazal and Sufi poetry. 

Yet, while I have undoubtedly been affected by their pain and have written about it, I have been wary of speaking in their voice in order not to define them.

What was your biggest challenge when writing this collection?

I had written some early poems in a fairly spontaneous manner with minimal editing. The challenge was to become more disciplined through controlling form, tone, line breaks, metre and so on. In recent years, I have attended a City Lit course, craft of poetry sessions and book launches by established poets and in addition, I am an avid reader of poetry. These have all lead to increased awareness of what is involved in writing interesting, inspiring poetry. A further challenge is that poetry editing never ends!

What did you enjoy most about writing the collection?

The sense of achievement in creating a poem to my satisfaction.

I know you have a busy life. Is it difficult to find the time and space for your writing?

It is difficult although I love exploring ideas and expressing myself through writing in both non-fiction prose and in poetry. Although my intention is always to start the day by working on a poem and shutting myself off from all the demands and pressures in ‘a room of my own’, I somehow invariably succumb to them.

Your publishers, Victorina Press, believe very strongly in the principles of bibliodiversity. What does this mean to you personally and was it a factor in your decision to submit your work to them?

I have to admit that the first time I heard about bibliodiversity was at one of the Victorina Press book launches and although I was unfamiliar with the term, I support all that it stands for. As the founding director of Exiled Writers Ink, whose fundamental aim is to enable the voices of refugee and migrant writers to be heard in society, I realise that bibliodiversity is key in informing our ethos. In fact, I submitted my work to Victorina because of their record in publishing cutting edge work of quality that provides new insights and of course I was thrilled at Consuelo’s positive response to my poetry.  

What is next for you as a writer? Another poetry collection or something else?

Yes, I aim to write a poetry collection and currently continue to write poems, some of which I hope to eventually submit to literary magazines. I would also like to convert my doctoral thesis into a book.

Thank you for taking the time to talk to me today. It's lovely to finally see The Search in print and I really hope it all goes well for you!

You can order a copy of The Search HERE

Interview With Nour Morjan

 

 

Today I’m welcoming Nour Morjan to Troutie McFish Tales to talk about her forthcoming poetry chapbook, I Am the Power You Undermine, which is out on September 30th from Victorina Press.

THE POET

“Don’t tell me stories about great kings/tell me stories about great queens who ran the world/ and were never heard of/ Don’t tell me what to become/let me become what I want/ Don’t use religion against me/or threaten me with hell/Being a slave to a man is hell enough”.

Nour Morjan is a feminist Syrian immigrant living in Shropshire. Her poems express a powerful belief in a woman’s right to own her body and she questions patriarchal societies and deep-rooted religious impositions. In Nour's poetry, she explores the internal battles she faces in her continuing search to find a sense of belonging, which she lost after moving to the UK. In constant dialogue with herself, she experiences loss of identity, cultural shock, but also self-growth. Living between cultures has given her an insight into what makes her a woman. 

 

Welcome, Nour! I must confess right away to my readers that I was the editor of I Am the Power, and therefore I feel personally invested in your collection. It struck me when I first read the poems that many of them feel as though they are a spontaneous outpouring of strong emotions. This gives them a freshness and immediacy, as though you wrote them in a very short timeframe. In reality, how long did it take you to write this debut collection and how much re-drafting did you do before you were happy to send it out into the world?

Thank you for having me here – and of course thank you for all your help with editing my pamphlet. You are spot on, the majority of my poems were written as a spontaneous outpouring of my feelings and emotions. I wrote most of them while on the bus on my daily journey to university at the time, or when I was in a new place which inspired me or helped me explore different feelings. I wrote the poems over a period of five years or so. Individually – apart from a few exceptions – most of them did not take me long to write. For some poems, I would write the initial line as a prompt, and would then leave it for a few days, weeks, or even months, until I had explored my feelings again and knew how to translate them into a poem.
    Initially, I wasn’t planning on publishing a collection, but when I was told that my poems stood a good chance of being published, I started considering re-drafting them with that in mind. I completed the initial re-drafting when I did my first ever live reading during the Refugee Week – a yearly event celebrated nationally. After that, I re-visited my poems more frequently, reading them out loud sometimes to listen to how they sounded. I finally submitted them to Victorina Press and they were accepted for publication.
 
I Am the Power You Undermine is a very personal piece of work, exploring your experiences and challenges as an immigrant, and your search for identity. I know you describe yourself as a Muslim feminist, and that you have very strong opinions on abortion rights, the restrictions of patriarchal societies and religious impositions. Have you ever been reluctant to express these beliefs for fear of judgement, or have you always had the courage and confidence to speak out about them? And do you think your writing has helped you to get your message across?

In all truthfulness, I was reluctant for a very long time to express my views, which I knew were radical. Coming from a very conservative Muslim society, I was always anxious about how my feminism would be received, especially when it came to comparing the things men or boys were entitled to compared to the choices that I, as a girl, and later as a woman, was given. I did argue with people around me about some of these topics, and the response was always either rejection or some form of policing. This fear haunted me for a very long time, and was the very reason why I wanted to move abroad. I wanted to have the space to explore my feminism and allow myself to grow as a woman. I fought a lot of mental battles around my religion and my society, and I had to do a lot of unlearning – exploring and challenging both myself and the society around me, including some religious people. This in turn affected my mental health. At one point, these battles were so hard to fight that I lost the will to live. Some people don’t understand that feminism isn’t just about women’s rights but also about the extent of the damage that the patriarchy has inflicted on us and on society – affecting men as well as women. I had to learn how to conquer my ground and empower myself and I did that through writing and through learning more about feminism from amazing feminist activists. Writing empowered and encouraged me to face my feelings and explore the ideas that came to me.

Do you look for inspiration outside your own life as well as to your own experiences?

My poems are predominantly about my own personal journey, but I have written from other people’s viewpoints as well. I wrote about refugees and abortion even though I am not a refugee myself and I haven’t experienced abortion. I know that going through the pain of these life events is not the same as writing about them, but I wanted to shed light on important social and political issues.
    I am also aware that some of my own experiences resonate with many other people. So, while most of the poems are written from my own perspective, I know that they are universally relevant.

What was your biggest challenge when writing this collection?

The biggest challenge was when I had the urge to write but had no time to do it. Writing has always been an essential way of surviving and keeping me sane in this crazy world. But as we get older, we have other pressing commitments.

What did you enjoy most about writing the collection?

When I write, I feel more myself, and I have this bond with my inner soul which brings me truth and peace. I wrote these poems without the intention of getting them published, but simply to connect with myself and just breathe through my writing.

I know you are a pharmacist and have a busy working (and home) life. Is it difficult to find the time and space to write?
 
Working in healthcare certainly can be tough, and with the pandemic we had even more difficult and challenging days. I also had to study for my registration exam alongside working full time and having a family to take care of.
    I must say, that with my husband’s help and support, I manage to find some time to write whenever I get the impulse. When I feel words are flowing in my head then I try to write, whether I am in the car park waiting for my shift to start or before I go to bed – or even while waiting for the food to be cooked.

Your publishers, Victorina Press, believe very strongly in the principles of bibliodiversity. What does this mean to you personally and was it a factor in your decision to submit your work to them?

I knew that submitting my poetry to a publisher believing strongly in diversity would mean my work would truly be seen from the angle I wanted it to be seen. Considering that I come from an ethnic minority background, I don’t always get to be seen as I am. Immigrants are often overlooked, and their talents can be hidden under the umbrella of social and cultural barriers. It takes both parties, the person from the ethnic minority and the surrounding society, to break down those impediments and create a more integrated society. Victorina created this space for people like me to have their voice heard and to let their talent sparkle. There was a time when I felt my background was a disadvantage to my progression in life, but through my journey I learnt how to turn the disadvantage into an advantage, and I feel that being from an ethnic minority gives a special flavour to my writing. 

What is next for you as a writer? Another poetry collection or something else?

I write poetry consistently, but sometimes in Arabic. I might start translating some of the poems into English. I do want to write a book, but it is very early days. I have more than one idea floating in the air and I have not settled on one yet.

Thank you for taking the time to talk to me today. I can’t wait to see I Am the Power in print and I really hope it all goes well for you!

It has been my pleasure.

You can pre-order Nour’s collection HERE