“I moved to Slemani in the fall of 2011 because I had heard the streets were named for poets. As soon as I arrived in the city, I began learning Sorani and working to understand the landscape of living poets around me. When, one day, I had the honor to sit down one afternoon with Dilawar Karadaghi, I was struck by the quiet that seemed to hang in the air around him. The lobby of the Slemani Palace Hotel echoed with the hum and honking of afternoon bazaar traffic, but he himself sat still, composed, peaceful. It wasn’t until years later that I would see more fully how hard Dilawar had worked to achieve and maintain this peace – for peace is not self-sustaining, especially not for a Kurd.”

Excerpt from foreword by Marie LaBrosse

_{The foreword in its entirety is here.}