1. INVASION by Choman Hardi

2. What is an Invasion? The act of invading, especially the entrance of an armed force into a territory to conquer A large-scale onset of something injurious or harmful, such as a disease An intrusion or encroachment

3. About Choman Hardi “I grew up in a refugee Kurdish neighborhood filled with stories about homeland and the hopes of return. This is where I spent my first five years.” In 1979 the Iraqi government issued an amnesty and after much hesitation her father decided to return. Choman remembers crossing back to her homeland; the journey captured in her poem At the Border “I was five years old and expected the other place behind the border to be much more beautiful. This is what my family had assured me. I realized I had been deceived. That day I probably learned the first important lesson in my life: that the stories immigrants tell about their homelands are myths and beautiful lies. Suleimanya was not better than Kerej and the landscape was not that different. A year later, war broke out between Iraq and Iran. “My childhood, like many of my generation, is full of the sounds of sirens and planes and guns. Our days were dominated by the Iraq-Iran war and our nights by Iraq’s war against the Kurdish peshmarga (fighters for independence).” “In those years all of our textbooks started with glorious pictures of Saddam Hussein, grinning at us. A large portrait was also hung above our blackboard. Some days, after heavy breakouts of shooting the night before, we would go to school and there would be more triumphant posters of Saddam on the walls. My father told me that they were hiding the bullet holes.”

4. What feelings and ideas does the word “invasion” prompt?

5. Instruct students to read the poem silently What do you think of the poem? What images and feelings does the poem elicit? How? What is the tone of the poem? Provide examples

6. Read the poem together, aloud, one stanza at a time and discuss, using the following questions

7. Stanza 1: Soon they will come. First we will hear The sound of their boots approaching at dawn Then they’ll appear through the mist. Who are “we” and “they”? What images are created by “dawn” and “mist”? What are alternative images of “dawn” and “mist”?

8. Stanza 2: In their death-bringing uniforms They will march towards our homes Their guns and tanks pointing forward Identify the military words. What effect do they create? Why aren’t the soldiers described in more detail? Why are only boots and uniforms mentioned?

9. Stanza 3: They will be confronted by young men With rusty guns and boiling blood. These are our young men Who took their short-lived freedom for granted What does ‘rusty guns and boiling blood” suggest about “us” in the poem? How is this contrasted with “their guns and tanks pointing forward” in the previous stanza?

10. Stanza 4: We will lose this war, and blood Will cover our roads, mix with our Drinking water, it will creep into our dreams. Is this an optimistic or pessimistic vision of their future? Why is the poet like this? What is the effect of using “will”? What is the effect of the repetition of “will” and “our”?

11. Stanza 5: Keep your head down and stay in doors— We’ve lost this war before it has begun What is the purpose of the imperative in the first line? What is the effect of the dash? How does the statement at the end of the poem contribute to the overall mood of the poem?

12. Read Invasion by Choman Hardi aloud

13. At the Border, 1979 What do you think it was like for a five year old to cross the border from Iran into her homeland?

14. At the Border, 1979 Read the poem quietly What do you think of the poem?

15. Questions for Discussion This poem is a short story. 1.What happens in the story? 2.What feelings does it evoke? 3.What is the author feeling? 4.What are the people around her feeling? How do you know?

16. Questions for Discussion Who are the characters in this poem? What do you know about them? Quote from the text

17. Characters of the Poem Use quotes from the poem to support your answers What are the guards like? How are they described? What is the tone with which they speak? What are the children like? How are they described? What is the tone with which they speak? What are the adults like? How are they described? What is the tone with which they speak?

18. About the Narrator From what her mother tells her, what does Choman expect in Iraq? What does she actually find?

19. Chain How many times does the word ‘chain’ appear? Where? What does the word chain mean? Why is it used so many times What is the meaning of the last line: The same chain of mountains encompasses all of us?