Transcription of Kifah Abdulla for the show Exile, Art & New Lives #295
Dr. Lisa: Today it is my pleasure to have Kifah Abdulla in the studio with me. Kifah is a poet, artist, writer, performer, teacher, and activist. Born and raised in Baghdad, Iraq, he spent over eight years as a prisoner of war in Iran. He published his first book of poetry, Dead Still Dream, in 2016, and he is preparing to publish his second book, Mountains Without Peaks, very soon. Thanks so much for coming in.
Abdullah: Thanks for having me.
Dr. Lisa: I think that you may be the first prisoner of war we’ve actually ever interviewed.
Abdullah: Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: I’m not sure that’s a good thing for your sake.
Abdullah: Yes, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Lisa: That’s a huge deal. Tell me a little bit about, first of all, how you got to be a prisoner of war in the first place.
Abdullah: Yes. When I finished my school, that college of science, and by law that the boys the men, and then unfortunately at that time, the longest war in the 20th century after the 2nd World War started between two neighbors in the Middle East, Iraq and Iran. At that time I finished my school, and I must go to the war. I was an activist against the dictatorship, but then I couldn’t said no. I said no, but I faced the trouble, a big trouble. I signed like for execution if I don’t go. But anyway, I was in the war front, and it’s like battles. Ours, they were lost the battle and they withdraw, and they left me there. I was responsible to build shelters for the soldiers. Then I was lost in the big desert for three days before I captured. It was a beautiful, I say, experience for me, but I touched the threshold of death. Something like that. Then after three days, I was under hallucination, hunger and thirst, and then I was captured. I was sent to prison, and they stayed for more than eight years.
Dr. Lisa: So you were a student of science?
Abdullah: Yes, I studied the biological sciences. I loved that, but it was not my choice first. I wanted to go to that art academy, but my father, he said, when I finish my high school, I said, like physics, chemistry, like math, you know. He said, “No, you should go to study sciences, but you can keep that your talents, art as happy.” Parents say, that’s okay, yeah, that’s okay, yeah, that’s it.
Dr. Lisa: So you’ve always had an interest in writing and art?
Abdullah: Yes. The story about that, about art first, before writing. Since I was really young, in elementary school, in four through eight, in art class, the teacher, you know, the art teacher, he stood beside my desk at that time and he said, “wow, you are an artist.” And it was like a shock for me, like lightning hit me at that time. Then he said, “You should come to after school for the studio.” I came back home, I told my Mom. She said, “it’s okay.”
So I went again to the school. It was so quiet, calm. Four through eight, to go to school, and when I reached that studio, and the door was half-opened, just like I opened the door. That moment, you know, the smell of oil colors filled my chest. It was so wonderful for me. And he saw me and he say, “Come in.” That was the beginning. I learned from him since I was very young, but the same story that happened again when I was in the middle school. The same that the art teacher, he thought that I was very talented in painting and drawing, and he taught me how to work on murals. I worked with him, and I learned from several teachers about shadow and lights. I just like developed my experience with teachers.
In high school, I was like, I worked like professionals. The art teacher say, “You’re an artist. You should go to the art academy.” I said, “Yes, I really would love that.” But that is the story happened, but they kept, even that when I was in college, my colleagues, the teachers, knew me that as an artist, besides a biologist. But unfortunately, I stopped when the military the service. But in the prison, it was a big challenge. I will talk maybe. You will ask me about that.
Dr. Lisa: Yes, I would love to hear about that. I’d love to hear one of your poems. I believe you’ve written a poem about your experience. Would you be willing to read that for us?
Abdullah: Yes, my pleasure. I would like to read what I call “Dream One.” This is about, I was in a prison, we were like thousands in a small prison with no windows, and this is a poem about that time.
DREAM
I dreamt of a small window. Through it flows clean air looking over a blue sky. White clouds travel through it. Flocks of birds pass by like air. I dreamt of a small window, the size of my hand, overlooking a sea. My eyes travel in it, into distant waves of blue. There the sun comes awakening the morning, and the night comes inlaid with light, a window into which the snow whispers, suspended in it, the moon and the rain. Into it, flow the colors of Autumn and in Spring the fragrant buds. A small window in which I count my mornings and my evenings. Nesting in it are my memories. I cultivate in it lash of dreams. I dreamt of a small window the size of my hand. I look from it to see my sweetheart. When she comes from afar, she waves to me, that she is coming soon, carrying between the folds of her heart happy news. A small window overlooking onto the last of a new age. I dreamt in a place where my one and only dream was and all that I wished for was to have a small window the size of my hand. I dreamt.
Dr. Lisa: So, you stayed in a place where there were no windows?
Abdullah: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: And that is why this window was so important to you?
Abdullah: Yes, that’s true. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: What was it like as someone who had this artistic spirit inside of himself, to be in a place where there were no windows… where there was no light coming in from the outside?
Abdullah: Yes. You know this is true, you know that in life, we don’t know. We are very rich, we have many things that we don’t pay for. Simple things. Like, you know, you can walk, you can touch even that glass. You can feel that in the sun, the stars, the blue sky, the water, the smell, you know, even the senses. I almost was lost to many of these things, and it was a big challenge. Then, just like I have no way, like my memories and the dreams like wake me up again and return me back to life. It’s like my body was captured, but not my mind.
Dr. Lisa: Were you able to do any art or any writing while you were in prison?
Abdullah: No. Absolutely. It was like it was forbidden and it’s like a sin, if they catch someone with a pen or pencil. But for me, it was really difficult. You know, I can say that different than others maybe because I was an avid reader and I used to use, pen and pencils most of the times. Then I missed them very much. But that after years, like by secret, I got a small pencil, little pencil, like five centimeter and they investigate us, that every time. Suddenly they come, they look for everything. Just like I hide that it’s like my jewels at that time. My treasure. I just like hide it anywhere, just like you cannot imagine, even in my body.
But at that time, even there was no papers. When I say that prisoner of war is completely different than in normal prison. Can you imagine, most of us we dreamt that we are in a normal high five-star prison? You can see TV. You can have a radio. You can walk. You can have a pencil. You can read. You can study. But they started like a brainwash, and they give us notebooks and pens, pencils. I drew many portraits of the prisoners, their portraits and their pictures of family, children, wives, their parents. I filmed the prison of that time, the guards, they were mad about that. They punished me and they tortured me for that. But I didn’t just stop.
After years and years, but also they forced me to paint. To paint their leaders, their scholars. I refused. This is like a story. Maybe I talk too much that I have many stories to talk about. I was dying one time, and they don’t send prisoners to the hospitals. They let the prisoners die in the prison, and unfortunately, we were two. One of the others, he died. But then I just like, my fate, it wasn’t my time. I saw that someone I know, he was a doctor, a prisoner doctor, just like his, that he see the prisoners. And just like I said to him, goodbye, and he understood what I mean.
Then he came with guards, and they send me to the hospital. In the hospital, I drew the guards. I drew the people. It was like a kind of freedom. When I think back to the prison, it’s like I had the surgery and then I refused to paint. I don’t like, and they forced me and they punished me even that I had surgery. My friends, they say, “Are you crazy? Do it. Just like, you should survive.” But then you know like after seven years in the prison, I wrote a novel, but in a notebook, in secret, like I give to enjoy you know that with each other based on a true story that happened in the Netherlands I didn’t see. Also that, I drew the prisoners and the prison and the barbed wires. I documented everything and just like I keep them secret between the prisoners. Unfortunately, I would love to bring them with me, but I couldn’t. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: How was it that you were able to get out? Did they finally decide to release the prisoners of war?
Abdullah: Yeah. You know that the war ended in 1988, but we stayed in the prison. There was no deal. But after two years, that was in 1990, there was an agreement between two governments, between two regimes, and by help of the International Red Cross, and just like for almost like two months, we were 70,000 prisoners. Iranian prisoners, almost 50,000 in Iraq. The deal would be in like within two months. But the first time when they came to us, they say, “We will return you back.” We laughed. Like they are not serious, because we heard it many times and just like we almost forgot, and we won’t be released. But then just like they came again and my name was in the second list, a big list and that’s what happened when I returned. But I was very afraid. It was a big challenge.
Dr. Lisa: How did you come to be in Maine?
Abdullah: Yes, I say my fate. This is my journey in life. I was a refugee in the Netherlands. It’s a long story, but my life is complex and full of beauty and scares and scars. I had, at that time, two children, two boys. They live here with their Mom, in Portland. In the Netherlands, I tried to build myself again and I studied in the University of Amsterdam to be besides an artist and also the writer also a teacher of biology and Dutch. To teach biology and Dutch, I didn’t like that. But it’s very hard. Then I decided to move; through the family reunion I moved to Portland, Maine.
Dr. Lisa: How old were your boys?
Abdullah: Yes, my boys now, like the older, he just like graduated from Cheverus High School. He’s doing very well. He’s very smart. I’m very happy for that. He got full scholarships from three colleges. This is wonderful. One is like Bowdoin.
Dr. Lisa: That’s wonderful.
Abdullah: Middlebury School in Fairmont and in New York also, and he is seventeen years old. The younger, Kalil, his name, he is just like in eighth grade in King Middle School. That guy, he is crazy about basketball. He is fourteen years old now.
Dr. Lisa: How old were they when you reunited with them?
Abdullah: They were young. It was like five years ago. Just imagine like Mo, he was twelve years old, and Kalil was eight years old.
Dr. Lisa: So, it sounds like they spent some period of time, when they were younger, without knowing you at all?
Abdullah: Yes. Yes, this is true. That’s what happened, because this was my fate, my journey in life. This is not easy. I don’t hope for anyone to face what I faced in life. I’m not sad about that, just like I accepted it and it’s my fate. I experienced many things. Many things. Also, that I were in many places. Honestly, we were in Jordan, also refugees. My kids were there. They were very young and even that they don’t know they are Iraqis and when people asked them when they moved here, “Where are you from?” They say, “I’m from Jordan, Amman.” Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: You have another poem that I’d like you to read for us.
Abdullah: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: I believe it’s about being in Portland.
Abdullah: Yes. This poem I called “Resurgo.” You know the story. I say I will rise again.
Pearls embroider the blue. White canvas of Casco Bay, and gulls break the breeze. Raindrops drum on the window, and a white line expands in the sky. The clouds are mothers nursing the earth. The Nova Star approaches the Port, and I yearn to see my sweetheart. Portland morning is white. The white gulls are bowls of ice over the roofs of the Old Port, and silent light grieves over the water. A car drives on Franklin Street and the flowers open their petals along the roadsides. Clouds sway on the strings of air, and the pink disk rises in absolute stillness. Two ferries making their journey in Casco Bay. All things are quiet, but a voice in my head singing. That evening I touched my spirit. It was transparent with tenderness of the breeze. My heart, a city you created in stories of love. My eyes inlaid with colors. Green covers the earth, a new dress, and buds blossom on branches. My mind, a sea filled with boats of love. My mind, a longing filled with light, and my memories are gulls never tired of the flight. My spirit a mirror. In it I saw more beauty than ever an eye could see. The wound over me is a magnolia flower and my sweetheart, a supreme cloud approaching. This poem about my new hometown, Portland.
Dr. Lisa: How is it that in the face of being imprisoned for such a long time, and going through a lot to get to Maine, and having so many things that were so difficult to deal with in your life, how is it that you’ve been able to maintain this sense of hope?
Abdullah: Yes. I lived with hope, since a long time that I can say that I was an activist against the dictatorship. Beside that I was an activist for peace and also for women’s right, that’s everywhere. The woman, she struggles. I had to choose just like I listen to myself. I had to say yes, I should accept what’s happened to me. It’s okay. That’s what happened. Just like I wanted to go for war. This is just like, in my writing, even in my painting, you can taste the hope every time. Besides, my experience in life, that put me in a situation to practice all these things.
Dr. Lisa: I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. Your poetry is beautiful, and I feel really blessed that you were able to come in today and to share this with me.
Abdullah: Thank you very much.
Dr. Lisa: I’ve been speaking with Kifah Abdulla, who is a poet, artist, writer, performer, teacher, and activist, currently living in Portland. Thank you very much.