‘I’m not a line that you draw,’ declaimed Shieraouf. Byron’s spirit lifted in the old George Hotel, as the young poet in exile from Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan spoke her defiance. She forms in verse the most extreme experiences, explaining that ‘19 is different’, not at all humdrum, for that is the number of Yazidi women consumed in fiery cages. This was a rare night in November Nottingham when Exiled Writers Ink came, originally, from Iran, Israel, Bangladesh and the hills of Iraqi Kurdistan, to give voice to Jewish and Muslim writers. ‘It was a good gig,’ remarked Michael Mehrdad Zand Ahanchian, born a jew in Iran, who has spent most of his life in the United Kingdom, now drilling down into civil wars and turbulence that lie buried deep in most places. Up the road from George Street, where Michael shared his astr o nomical verse, Standard Hill records an English King’s fatal mistakes. Shamim Azad clicked the rhythm in Bengali and English, explaining why she is ‘Not a Chameleon’, ...