Exiled poets share experiences

Prime Minister Helen Clark was due to open the event

Hundreds of exiled poets and writers are gathering in New Zealand for a conference exploring the link between exile and creativity.

Writers and academics from more than 30 countries have travelled to the city of Auckland to share their experiences of fleeing their homelands and the impact it has had on their work.

The Poetics of Exile conference has taken more than a year to plan as co-ordinator Professor Mike Hanne of the University of Auckland set about making contact with writers around the world.

The three-day event was due to be opened by Prime Minister Helen Clark to welcome participants who had travelled from as far as London, China and Nigeria.

Themes being debated include memory and forgetfulness, identity and exile and the theology of language and exile.

Diversity

Its an opportunity to review the extraordinary creative contribution that people who have lost their homeland so often make to the country they settle in Professor Mike Hanne

Poetry readings, lectures and art exhibitions are also being held, as well as a multi-cultural concert featuring everything from hip-hop to classical music.

Professor Hanne acknowledged that living in exile was a painful experience but said the conference would reflect the diversity of ways that artists deal with and express their pain.

Among the attendees are Chinese poet Yang Lian who fled to New Zealand from China but has since settled in London, Czech poet Bronislava Vokova and First Nations Canadian artist Dolleen Manning.

Others will bring their experiences of Iraq and Argentina, as well as those who have made their home in New Zealand.

Timely

"This country has been enriched by the arrival of people fleeing such diverse situations as Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany, oppressive regimes in Eastern Europe, East Asia and Latin America, war in Africa, the Middle East, Indonesia and former Yugoslavia, and coups in Fiji," said Professor Hanne.

But he admitted the country was experiencing a rising anxiety at the numbers of immigrants who have been allowed to settle in the country, making the conference timely.

"Its an opportunity to review the extraordinary creative contribution that people who have lost their homeland so often make to the country they settle in.

"Specifically, its a chance for New Zealanders to understand that refugees aren't just people who need help to fit in, but people who have much to offer."