In this episode of our podcast, you will hear the brilliant poet and theatre-maker Hafsah Aneela Bashir talking about the poem that has been a friend to her: ’On Children' by Kahlil Gibran.

Hafsah Aneela Bashir is a Manchester-based poet, playwright, performer and mother, originally from East London. Founder and co-director of Outside The Frame Arts, she is passionate about championing voices outside the mainstream.

Winner of the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship 2019, she was writer-in-residence with Manchester Literature Festival, is an Associate Artist with Oldham Coliseum Theatre and a Supported Artist at The Royal Exchange Theatre. Creating socially engaged work, her play Cuts Of The Cloth was commissioned for PUSH Festival 2019. Her debut poetry collection The Celox And The Clot is published by Burning Eye Books.

Hafsah has worked creatively with Manchester International Festival, Ballet Black, HOME Theatre Mcr, Manchester Literature Festival and ANU Productions Irl. Her SICK! Festival commission, Four Dholis And A Divorce explored mental health set in the South Asian community. Since her visit to The Poetry Exchnage, Hafsah has become a close and vital associate artist in our work.

Hafsah Aneela Bashir visited The Poetry Exchange at John Rylands Library, Manchester in May 2016. We’re very grateful to John Rylands Library for hosting The Poetry Exchange. Do visit them for further inspiration!

Hafsah is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Lesley Bennett and Michael Schaeffer.

’On Children' is read by Fiona Bennett.

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'On Children' (from 'The Prophet') by Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,

but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children

as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.

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