Mohammad Ali-Maleki is a tailor and prop-maker by trade. He spent seven years in detention in Manus Island for no reason other than requesting asylum, seeking safety away from his homeland of Iran.
In 2016 Mohammad’s poem ‘The Strong Sunflower’ was the impetus for, and first work published on, Verity La’s Discoursing Diaspora project. It also appeared in Southerly’s Writing Through Fences – Archipelago of Letters.
Writing Through Fences has also published two of his poems ‘The Strong Sunflower’ & ‘The Fox’ as small books illustrated by numerous artists.
His writing has been published by many online literary journals, and he has written a chapbook, Truth in the Cage (Verity La and Rochford Street Press, 2018). His poem ‘Brother’ was made into a poetic film by documentary filmmaker Siân Darling. Mohammad continues to create poetry, saying “You can find my whole life in my poems, like a letter to God.”
His latest exhibition ‘From the Land of Silence’, a series of canvas-printed poems by Mohammad Ali Maleki written during his time as a detainee on Manus Island just finished showing at the Queensland Multicultural Centre.