In honor of National Poetry Month, The Academy of American Poets spotlighted the Stories of Arrival: Refugee and Immigrant Youth Voices Poetry Project, a program founded by poet and long-time islander Merna Ann Hecht.

Hecht, along with co-director and teacher Carrie Stradley, works with young refugees from 17 countries, ages 14 to 18, at Foster High School in Tukwila. They are dedicated to lifting up the voices of these students by helping them tell stories of trauma and resilience, displacement and arrival.

The book, “Our Table of Memories: Food & Poetry of Spirit, Homeland & Tradition,” which emerged from the project, was first released last December and will be available again mid-month at Vashon Bookshop. It includes poetry, art, recipes, stories and poems by the students and refugee women from Project Feast, an organization that empowers refugee women through their cooking skills.

Hecht writes in the introduction, “Every young person in this project and each woman we have met through Project Feast is an ambassador for teaching us about the courage required to endure the ache of leaving a homeland.”

The following poem is by Kang Pu, a Burmese refugee.

MY MOTHER’S KITCHEN

When my mom cooked it smelled of sweet wintertime cherries, of a solitary forest with rain falling, and it smelled like the murmur of a lonely bird, singing. I picture the spherical smoke rising from her kitchen, it was like the sound of sleep at night, it was like arriving home safe and sound, the sounds of her kitchen were peaceful. I still long for the laughter of those family meals we all waited for at that table, my mom’s table, how she prepared every family meal, this is what I still long for, so often I remember my mother nothing can take her memory away from me, it is truly difficult that I have departed from my motherland, and from my mother’s kitchen.

Pu said he wrote this poem “for memories of my mom and her kitchen. It was difficult to write because I still long for my mother’s kitchen. Sometimes it makes it hard for me to study. Yet, no matter how far away from my parents, I am still holding their lessons and still using what they taught me. Without lessons from parents, it’s hard to be in community with others and hard to stand on your own.”