Voices above the chaos: female war poets from the Middle East

The carnage in Turkey and Syria has led to a blossoming of poetry – with women at the forefront. Here, two of them, one Syrian and one Kurdish, tell their stories

Syrian poet Maram al-Masri in Paris. ‘The world of my heart has become vast. It started with the revolution.’ Photograph: Magali Delporte/Picturetank

 

Ed Vulliamy

Sunday 4 September 2016 - The Observer 

 

The Syrian city of Aleppo crumbles into rubble, assailed by Russian bombs, government artillery and chemical weapons. In the heat of battle, Turkish troops and Kurdish fighters turn on one another, fighting their age-old war, though both are supposed to be fighting a common enemy, Islamic State (Isis), advancing on the battered, tortured civilians of Aleppo and other Syrian and Kurdish communities in a murderous pincer movement.  MORE
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Ed Vulliamy

Sunday 4 September 2016 09.30 BST

The Syrian city of Aleppo crumbles into rubble, assailed by Russian bombs, government artillery and chemical weapons. In the heat of battle, Turkish troops and Kurdish fighters turn on one another, fighting their age-old war, though both are supposed to be fighting a common enemy, Islamic State (Isis), advancing on the battered, tortured civilians of Aleppo and other Syrian and Kurdish communities in a murderous pincer movement.