Languages—along with the collective memory and histories they carry—are transformed not only through migration and the passage of time, but also as a result of censorship and the exertion of political power. Such pressures determine who is allowed to speak, which words are heard, and what can safely be said. Conversely, experiences such as war, exile, love, and loss often cannot be articulated through language alone—memories return as fragments, some emotions resist explanation, and sometimes silence communicates what a sentence cannot. Poetry has always worked within these tensions. Rather than transcending the limits of language, it makes them visible, challenging established grammars while leaving room for ambiguity.  

Ghayath Almadhoun, Stefanie-Lahya Aukongo, and Yang Lian write from different languages, histories, and poetic traditions. Almadhoun transforms Palestinian-Syrian histories of exile into striking Arabic poetry of memory and rupture; Aukongo brings a powerful and intimate voice to Black Namibian-German experiences and intersectional realities; while Yang Lian, a central figure among China’s Misty Poets, has forged formally daring Chinese-language poetics across decades of exile. In their work, questions of displacement, violence, memory, survival, and belonging take on distinct forms. Their poems ask what happens when inherited language can no longer hold lived experience.  

Through readings followed by a conversation moderated by literary scholar and critic Maha El Hissy, the three poets demonstrate not only what words can express, but also what becomes audible through their fractures, silences, and transformations.