Back in 2017, the Youtube video of a song — ‘Mey’ — performed by Farhad Bandesh and Mostafa Azimitabar, (Kurdish asylum seekers held in detention on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea), caught my eye.
The following year, I managed to get in touch with Farhad who shared a little of his experience of detention on Manus Island.
Both men have since been released into Australian society, but not without continuing issues, as a a couple of recent news articles demonstrate:
Lovely to see Elanna Herbert’s 2023 poetry collection ‘sifting fire writing coast’ has been shortlisted in the ACT Literary Awards, along with Sandra Renew’s ‘Apostles of Anarchy’, K. A. Nelson’s ‘Meaty Bones’, Tim Metcalf’s ‘The Moon the Bone’, and Paul Hetherington’s ‘Sleeplessness’. Good luck to all.
Tina Brown, ‘The Guardian’ 11th June 2024
He was cocky, beguiling and witheringly funny. Martin’s most seductive appeal was in his voice. Off the page, a rich, iconoclastic croak. On the page, a combination of curated American junkyard and British irony that hit the low notes so hard against the high that sparks flew and made every sentence electric. In a way, it matched his reading habits: if readers of the future want to know how an abiding faith in classic literature could survive, and even thrive, in a world of redtops, porn mags and trash TV, they will surely turn to Martin before anyone else.