At the BorderChoman Hardi

Choman Hardi was born in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1974, but her family fled to Iran while she was still a baby. When she was five years old, Saddam Hussein became president of the Iraqi Republic and she returned with her family to the country of her birth. At the age of 14, however, the Kurds in Iraq were attacked with chemical weapons. There were mass killings and disappearances and once again Hardi’s family was forced into exile. She settled in England when she was 20 and, although she first wrote her poems in Kurdish, she now writes in English. ‘At the border, 1979’ is one of the poems in her first collection in English, named Life for Us, published in 2004, that explores the terror, violence and persecution of war, alongside the pain of displacement.

The poet describes how, at the age of five, she and her family crossed back into Iraq, the country where she had been born. She remembers her sister’s naive playful attitude, the sternness of the border guards, the mothers being very emotional because they could return home, and one man’s display of affection for his homeland. Since she was so young, she could not understand why a ‘thick iron chain’ (l. 5) should make any difference between two countries that looked identical to her: the soil ‘continued on the other side’ (l. 20), it was raining on both sides of the chain, and the same Kurdistan mountains surrounded them. Yet the adults were behaving as though something important was happening.

You should compare this poem with other poems about the same themes: divided society: 'The Right Word', 'Belfast Confetti', 'The Yellow Palm’; helplessness: 'Out of the Blue', 'Futility’.

‘It is your last check-in point in this country!’

We grabbed a drink –

soon everything would taste different.

 

The land under our feet continued

divided by a thick iron chain.

My sister put her leg across it.

‘Look over here,’ she said to us,

‘my right leg is in this country

and my left leg in the other.’

The border guards told her off.

The poem is about someone crossing a

border back into their homeland as a child. The family sound helpless and

anxious.The poem is

autobiographical, written from Hardi’s own

experience, and the poet directly quotes what

people say. It begins with an exclamation:

‘It is your last check-in point in this country!’ Who is saying this? A

parent, another adult or perhaps one of the border

guards?

Throughout the poem Hardi seems to be questioning

what is the same and what is different. This emphasises

the young child’s lack of understanding. Taste can

mean more than flavour on the tongue. It is an

ambiguous word that can also mean to experience

something, suggesting that the family’s life is going to

change in many ways.

Hardi’s sister straddles the dividing thick iron chain and jokes, but

perhaps Hardi, sensing life is going to change dramatically, feels

apprehensive at this border point.

The poem is written in a simple, conversational style with no elaborate description or imagery. The short sentences create a

sense of a child's memory and highlights the important and obvious message that borders are artificial and unnecessary.

There's a contrast between the logical perspective of a child and the more complex emotions of adults.

My mother informed me: We are going home.

She said that the roads are much cleaner

the landscape is more beautiful

and people are much kinder.

Dozens of families waited in the rain.

‘I can inhale home,’ somebody said.

Now our mothers were crying. I was five years old

standing by the check-in point

comparing both sides of the border.

The poem is written in the first person, showing it's a personal memory. The stanzas are of unequal length, which suggests fragments of memories

occurring to the character as she pieces together memories of the scene. The use of caesura (a complete stop in a line of poetry) and enjambment

(continuation of a sentence or clause over a line-break) reinforce this impression.

This direct speech gives the poem immediacy and

we can easily share in the experience thought the use of senses. The

poet allows us to feel the emotions of the

characters in the story. The use of some

individual words such as ‘inhale’ used

metaphorically that evoke strong emotions.

The word ‘inhale’ for instance, suggests that the refugee is trying to

breathe in all the pleasures and memories of a former life as he or

she returns to the homeland.

The differences between the two countries sound exciting when the mother explains how Iraq is ‘more beautiful’.

She repeats the word ‘much’: ‘the roads are much cleaner’, ‘and people are much kinder’. The use of comparative adjectives suggests vast differences.

The adults become very emotional about crossing the border and returning to their homeland. The

narrator can't understand why it's so important to them when things look

the same on both sides of the border.

The autumn soil continued on the other side

with the same colour, the same texture.

It rained on both sides of the chain.

We waited while our papers were checked,

our faces thoroughly inspected.

Then the chain was removed to let us through.

A man bent down and kissed his muddy homeland.

The same chain of mountains encompassed all of us.

The beginning of the poem uses a lot of direct speech. The tone becomes more reflective in stanzas 6 and 7 as the poet

describes the lack of difference between the two sides of the

border.

In contrast to her mother, the young

Hardi comments that the soil is ‘the same

colour, the same texture’. The repetition

of the word ‘same’ reinforces the

puzzlement of the child, who has been told that

life will be so ‘much’ better.

The word ‘chain’ is used four times in the poem, so it must be an important idea. ‘Chain’ can have different meanings. It can bind together in the way that the links are connected; it can tie you up and confine you; it is even a collective noun for a

mountain range. All three concepts are used by Hardi in lines 5, 22, 25 and 27. The Kurds are linked by identity, repressed wherever they live or to wherever

they flee, and Kurdistan is a mountainous area.

There's a sense that people have their

feelings and attitudes

manipulated by nationalism, and

that national boundaries and restrictions have negative effects.