"Homing Instinct"

​"Homing Instinct," I am very pleased to say, has been published in volume 2 issue 2 of the online edition of the other side of hope, the UK’s first ever Literary Magazine of Sanctuary. Take a look. The long poem can be read in its entirety here. 

In 2021, I needed to root deeply into both "home" and "migration." As I wrote, I connected not only to my experience, but also that of my great-grandparents, grandparents, parents. Ancestors and future generations.

I wrote the first version of this poem for installation at the multidisciplinary art exhibition Rites of Passage: 20/20 Vision. In this early version, the poem was composed through prose lines. Gradually, to hone in the sharp music in the lines and to better tell its stories—the poem functions as a collective score—I found myself moving to a lineated form.

I find that in writing a poem such as this, I myself am moulded, shaped.

the other side of hope
volume 2, issue 2, winter 2022
​(online edition)
​ISSN 2754-2505

The Good Arab? by Dmitry Borshch