Across the August Bank Holiday weekend, over 120,000 people experienced Birmingham Weekender’s vibrant programme of free events. Poet-in-residence and Birmingham’s Poet Laureate, Ayan Aden, featured in the programme; she shared powerful spoken-word performances, inspired by community responses to a public art project at New Street Station.

Ayan has weaved the hopes, dreams and reflections shared by members of the public into a new poem, celebrating collective inspiration and offering a poetic call to action. 

He tried to collect hope
hide and tuck it in his shirt as a kid.
collect it in wallets as an adult
bury it under his phone case
and into the corners of his cupboards.

I’ve tried to hold on to the holding on of resilience,
picked apart the aspirations of a stranger who tells me
in Digbeth, he has seen years of longing
wiped out in a single sweep of tumultuous wind.
still tried to chase it down
because trying is better than nothing

I’ve tried to chain down my dreams
and pass out love in the streets of unfamiliarity.

My grandaunt always said ‘Jaceyl ayee dibta?’
Whom does love bother?
And when has giving love ever hurt?

and tell me why in the most unseen places does hope lurk?

in the cracks of the pavements in Mosley,
the half hearted smile of a stranger by Solihull,
the polite Bearwood nods of a cashier,
or in the conker battles of my primary school in Sparkbrook.

These are the exchanges of collective experience
because we are human first and all other things second

our souls need no translation for they have a language of their own
and our hearts understand each other in this world we call home

And Birmingham has spoke
Loud. Clear.

and I’ve listened.
Heard them with free birds that
circle the Grand Central Sky

In the train station where I see a family of four: one girl and one boy.

She looks around 19/20, her father ginger and her mum blonde.
Her father crosses his arms, you might see it as reservedness
but i can tell he is trying to hold his emotions. Her brother on the
other hand acting like he don’t give a damn. He is 7 so may not
understand the implications of this moment.

But her mother does
And her father does
And so does she.

They anxiously wait for the train
talk all things mundane
they’ve done this a few times
they’ll do it a few times again.
she is leaving back to uni
her parents wait for her visits
her brother waits for her calls
sometimes at night

on the side i see a young man with a
back pack so large with a hat,
a t- shirt with a picture of a car.
He is on his way between here and there
but for second his phone he stares
as he waits for Cardiac’s LSD Album- the first in 20 years.
Probably older than him, hundreds walk by him
but he waits

“the lead singer died a while ago
but they will finally finish the album soon.”
He says “They finish the album soon
it’s more than a song, Its legacy”
he waits

i saw an average aged man wait patiently for the
end of global warming for it sits close to his heart

I spoke to a woman who said she waits peace love and unity
A boy. A boy. A boy. A boy told me he waits ‘for everyone to have a bigger voice’
Another lady with a coffee in her hand and hope in the other says she is waiting
for 2pm. For her that’s when work stops and the world starts.

A girl said she waits for hatred to stop
love to start
for penguins to fly
and another for lower prices.
Aren’t we all waiting for lower prices?

A lady in blue said she was waiting for the world to stop
using fossil fuels and use something else
that doesn’t destroy our planet. Pete said “why haven’t
they started saving our planet?”

A man with long hair said he was waiting for mass unity & collaboration,
“we get rid of these systems, lean on each other and we will achieve human preservation”

And a lady in a hijab said she’s waiting for the end of inequality
And when he told me
he was waiting for the world ‘to stop having wet wipes as leaders’
that unicorns exist and must exist
exist and must exist
exist and must exist
because his daughter, his world was a unicorn.

They’re waiting to start driving,
open their new laptop,
A woman in a wheelchair said she’s waiting
for the wars to stop
for the wars to stop.
A tatted up man said ‘no more persecutions of people
because people are human too’
who wait to be with their family again.
for the world to appreciate natural beauty again

A man with dementia ‘unexpected surprises’
I didn’t expect to see a child waiting to ‘every body to be equal’

I’ve seen people on the verge of disappearing within their bones whilst waiting,
waiting of war to end,
waiting to visit their friend,
to meet their long distance lover,
waiting with persistence,
waiting to go to Disney,

waiting and waiting and waiting

waiting to marry their lover Summer

waiting for the winds of prosperity to never depart
And the rays of hope to forever touch their faces
And radiate their hearts

Chat gpt said I cant wait because ‘me and patience and I broke up years ago’
I found it funny because AI cannot take our humanness- no matter how hard it tries
because it’ll never know the feeling waiting to go home and enjoy the sun

A man from Bermuda with an energy so pure
said he was waiting for all our dreams and desires to true
because he said ‘Just remember to ask and believe and you shall receive’

And that compels me to ask you
What are you waiting for?

Beyond the here and beyond the now,
between hustling and wanting success
between giving love to receiving love
between being kind and seeing kindness
between wanting Japanese trains and not the British ones,

What is it you seek?
even if our skin may be different
our clothes or speech
Tell me what are you waiting for

because we must be waiting for the same thing
Peace. Prosperity. Harmony. Humanness. Love

And that family of now 3
wait not just her physical return
but her love and warmth
her laughter and glee
her presence is precious to them you see

as she leaves
They’re waiting
They’ll continue waiting

And what you’re waiting for is more than what you perceive
Because waiting is more than just the weight of waiting
It’s believing in what could be.

If we can see the same things
then surely one day our patience of
waiting will allow the radiance of hope

to come alive and out the cracks
leave the eyebags of our neighbours
the worry of our children
the hurt in our mothers

So how long until we learn that waiting is hope
that it isn’t something we can ever let go of

to let go is to exist and not live
to want and not give
to give in and not persist

What is there to life if we are not hoping for better
What is there to life is we are not waiting for better together

If we can see it
and we can wait for it
then we can one day become it

So wait with me
Wait with me
Just wait with me

Wait together
Wait strong
Wait until the weight of wait is no longer

And one day we will be

Would you believe me if i told you
that we don’t have to wait much longer
if we wait together

so wait
but wait together
because I promise one day Birmingham,
We won’t need to wait much more.
Wait with me.