A Message
2023This spoken word poem called ‘A Message’ is a love letter to the Arabic language—one that flourished through oral and poetic tradition. Salwa personifies the Arabic language as her mother, a presence she feels belonging towards and yearns to embrace, yet finds herself distant from.
The poem journeys through feelings of love and separation. Love, in Arabic “حب”, comes from the same root word as seed. Salwa illustrates this love that grows through time, from birth when the أَذَان"” (call to prayer) is recited into the ear of a newborn until death, where we are buried underground, just like a seed.
Salwa who is from Egypt but never lived there, also refers to her mother as "أم الدنيا" which is known amongst the Arab culture to be, "the mother of the world." The pain of longing for her country, culture and language is portrayed through her struggle to reconnect with her mother as years pass and life pulls her away.
Salwa Sadek is an Egyptian-Australian AJ+ journalist and poet living in Qatar. Her passion for storytelling sparked her interest in telling her own stories through poetic form. She published her first poetry collection ‘Carry Me With You’ in 2021. Salwa’s work encompasses identity, faith and belonging.