Go West Young Man Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Black British artist, based in the West Midlands region
Keith Piper. His artwork, Go West Young Man
Opens with a diagram of a slave ship,
Stirs up muddy water, raises echoes of boat people

Slaves were enforced immigrants
And trafficked girls from Europe, were they pressed?

Zarina Hashmi's artwork'sHome is a Foreign Place,
Born Muslim in a Hindu country, India
Now a New Yorker, she wrote a list of home words,
Posted them off to a Pakistani calligrapher,
To put in the Nastaliq script of her Urdu mother tongue
‘We are our homes' she writes, from her adopted country.

Mona Hatoum, born in Lebanon, of a Palestinian family,
Stranded in London, by war in her land of birth
Her Routes II is five maps taken from airline brochures
"The nomadic existence suits me fine, " she says,
She considers the paths in Routes II to be "routes for the rootless."

Mateo López drew objects in transit around his native Colombia
Travel without Movement, following abandoned railways,
Never completed, now, lying in ruin.

How many times have you travelled in mind only?
Imagination, a boat leading to no where
Climbing stairs up to the clouds

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, was born in Oklahoma
Her father came from Iran
His ID card described him as a ‘resident alien'
Inspiring "Portrait of My Father as an Alien"
He was a foreign citizen, not a Martian.