EXPLORING TRAUMA AND HOPE IN REFUGEES’ POEMS
Abstract
A situation of enforced migration in which individuals are compelled to migrate against their own causes a sense of displacement (Shamsuddoha et al., 2012). As of 2019, UNHCR has confirmed a population of 79.5 million forcibly displaced refugees, which accounts for nearly one percent of the global population. Displaced refugees is a topic that has gained international focus in numerous disciplines - anthropography, geopolitics, health sciences, to name a few. This paper examines displaced refugees through two recent poems composed in 2018: Greetings to the People of Europe by Alemu Tebeje and When Exile Comes: How the Brain Reacts to Trauma by Eric Ngalle Charles. Both poets have lived as refugees, and they both have experienced displacement and consequently, its hardships. It aims to provide a linguistic lens in analysing displaced refugees’ plights by identifying and foregrounding distinctive linguistic devices in the poems. The in-depth stylistic analysis of the poems unveils that, while trauma is commonly discovered, hope and future viewpoints are equally registered.
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.30743/ll.v5i1.3709
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Fakultas Sastra
Universitas Islam Sumatera Utara (UISU), Medan
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