Be by My Side and See What Has Happened to Me – The Poetry Project and PEN Berlin, 2024

In late November 2024, the anthology "Be by My Side and See What Has Happened to Me", edited by PEN Berlin and The Poetry Project, was published. In it, 29 poets write about what they experienced while fleeing, how their relationship to their former home country has changed, and how each of them, in their own way, hopes to settle in Germany. The texts are in German as well as in their original languages: Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, and Ukrainian.

I Wanted to Stay. I Left. – The Poetry Project, 2019

The poems collected in the volume "I Wanted to Stay. I Left." were written by refugees and non-refugees. They deal with loss and loneliness, fear and longing. Yet they likewise address love and common ground, as well as the struggle for mutual understanding. "I wanted to stay. I left." also holds up a mirror to those who have never had to flee and asks how they would act if they had to.

Alone to Europe – The Poetry Project, 2017

How do we want to live together? What have people experienced while fleeing their homes? These and other questions are explored in the collection "Alone to Europe". Young people from Afghanistan and Iran wrote poems about longing and beauty, but also about the fear of death and feeling alienated. These deeply personal texts show that, even amid speechlessness and the ruins of war, the poetic soul of a centuries-old, sophisticated culture still lives on — beautiful and undamaged. Through these poems, young people find their voices.

I Wish I Were a Day in the World’s Summer – The Poetry Project, 2025

The zine “I Wish I Were a Day in the World’s Summer” contains a collection of lyrical texts from the year 2025 on the themes of belonging and longing.

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