Here is the link to the birthday reading held to celebrate Ilhan’s birthday on 8 March 2021.
Jointly organised by PEN Norway and Wales PEN Cymru, we were joined by poets and musicians from all around the world to celebrate Ilhan’s poetry, his spirit and his family.
Ilhan Sami Çomak Birthday Reading 2021
EVENT SCHEDULE
Caryl Bryn reads Ilhan’s poem ‘Things that are not Here’ in Welsh to a piece for harp composed for Ilhan by Shelley Musker Turner
Introduction by PEN Norway’s Turkey Adviser Caroline Stockford
Message from Ilhan’s mother & Ipek Özel
FIRST READINGS
Alice Oswald reads ‘Trial of the Soul by Physics’
Menna Elfyn, President, Wales PEN Cymru reads “Wild Ponies’
New Zealand poet Sophia Wilson reads ‘The Captive’s Song’
Liz McManus of Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann reads ‘To Ilhan’
Norwegian poet Aasne Linnestå reads Ilhan’s poem “I Came to you, Life’
Member of Turkish Authors’ Union, Hakkı Zariç, speaks about Ilhan’s work
Turkish poet Nilay Özer reads Ilhan’s poem ‘What good is reading Poetry?’
SECOND READING
Jeffrey Cyphers Wright reads ‘Star Harbour’
Lee Herrick reads ‘In a Daydream’
Haleh Liza Gafori reads ‘Lit by Lightening’
Caroline Stockford thanks all participants
Kurdish folk singer (and Ilhan’s cousin) Suna Alan’s song, ‘The Ivy’
Screening of Øivind Hånes and Karsten Brustad’s
video and operatic rendition of Ilhan’s poems
Free the Poet Ilhan Çomak 