On the occasion of the book launch of Words that Walk Through Walls (Palewell Press) at the end of November 2024, we were all prepared for another campaigning event about the terrible injustice of Kurdish poet Ilhan Sami Çomak’s long imprisonment of thirty years in a Turkish prison. Thirty-six years is the life sentence and political prisoners are usually released after thirty years with six years off for ‘good behaviour.’ Ilhan has been a model prisoner but this August, just before his anticipated release, a political person and ‘veteran’ of the 15 July coup-attempt (military AKP supporter) was drafted onto the parole board. As a result, his imprisonment was prolonged for political reasons. We who cared about Ilhan were desperately disappointed at the news.
Ilhan’s situation and poetry are well-known around the world. In the last two years, international poets had been invited to write poems to him and he wrote poems in reply to many of them. The anthology Words that Walk Through Walls, which is edited by Caroline Stockford and Kelly Davis, brings together these original poems and his replies. The aim of the book was also to show the overwhelming global support for Ilhan and encourage the Turkish government to bring forward his release. Words That Walk Through Walls launched on 28th November 2024 at Camden Arts Centre.
Yet, totally unexpectedly, the event metamorphosed into a celebration. The evening before, we heard the news that Ilhan had been released! I had received an e-mail from Michael Baron who was passing on the news from Margaret Owen, both long involved in the campaign to free Ilhan. It was difficult to absorb the amazing event even with a photo attached of Ilhan and Ipek Ozel outside Silivri prison. Ipek is the McKenzie friend and campaigner who has faithfully visited Ilhan over all the years.
Caroline Stockford, Pen Norway’s Turkey Adviser and dedicated campaigner, described the long trajectory of the campaign to free Ilhan. Apparently, making human rights comparisons between Turkey and western countries did not yield results but ensuring Turkey complied with its own laws had been more helpful.
It was moving to hear the involvement of so many contributors, both in person and on-line, all reading and speaking about Ilhan, his situation and his poetry. A procession of writers read a poem from the anthology by an international poet and some poets, including Kelly Davis, Ruth Padel, Michael Geoffrey Baron and Philip Gross, read their own work. Readers included many from Exiled Writers Ink: Goran Ali Baba, Catherine Davidson, Anba Jawi, Lester Gomez Medina and others. Jennifer Langer began the evening with a poem she had written a few years ago imagining Ilhan’s emergence into the world. However, she had neither expected it to reflect reality nor had she expected that she would be reading it one day after Ilhan’s release. Her poem ended:
come moon and stars and sky
come people over the moon
rejoice with music and dancing
it is time to celebrate the great glory of this night
Come celebrate, come celebrate, the glory of this night!
Both Ipek (by video) and Caroline explained how through a dynamic creative process, poems had literally walked back and forth through the prison walls. Caroline wrote poems with Ilhan in a ‘call and response manner and then asked other poets to write for Ilhan. He replied to many of their poems with verses of his own, creating an extremely moving dialogue. He wrote:
‘Please read a stanza or a poem and share it with others…My heart is comforted by your solidarity efforts.’
