When Strangers Become Connected Through Poetry

We're still a bit overwhelmed, honestly. This past weekend, Dumitrița and I brought Languages of the Heart to life for the first time as a 2-day series of workshops, and what happened was something we'll both be thinking about for a long time.

Dumitrița and I are both immigrants. We know what it's like to arrive in a country that's not yours, to try to find your place in a society that's already established, to feel like an outsider even when people are kind. And we both believe in the power of arts, poetry, and music to say what words alone can't.

We didn’t want another networking event or integration program where people sit awkwardly and exchange pleasantries. We wanted to create a space where people could actually connect, through creativity, through vulnerability, through listening.

We had eleven people show up. People from different countries, different backgrounds, some who'd just arrived in Iceland, some who'd lived here their whole lives.

We filled the weekend with writing exercises, guided imagery, and expressive art activities. The beautiful part? No one had to share what they created. It was just for them.

But then something interesting happened.

After each workshop, we'd ask people to pair up, and we made sure to mix it up each time so people were talking to someone different. We'd ask them questions like: What did you feel? How was this for you?

And they actually wanted to hear the answers. They were curious about each other. Genuinely.

The energy in the room shifted every single workshop. There was laughter. There were people who were emotional. There was so much support happening between strangers who, two days earlier, didn't know each other existed.

And the best part was watching the cultural differences just... dissolve. It wasn't that they didn't matter anymore. It was just that they stopped being the thing people focused on. What people focused on was each other.

In their final reflections, people said they felt safe and that they felt trust. They said they felt seen. They said they felt like they belonged to something, like they were part of a community. These were people who came looking for connection, and they found it.

That's what we were hoping for. And it happened.

By the end of the weekend, everyone had written a poem. And our musicians, María Viktoría Einarsdóttir, Sigrún Kristbjörg Jónsdóttir, and Geoffrey Stekelenburg, will create personal soundtracks for each one. Those poems with their music will be available on streaming services. And in early September, we're hosting an event where participants will perform their poems with the music, with their families and friends there to witness it.

None of this would have been possible without our friends at Hafnar.Haus for opening their space to us, truly the creative heart of Reykjavík, and the Immigrant Fund from Iceland's Ministry of Social Affairs and Housing. Their support allowed us to offer this entire weekend completely free.

Because here's the thing we know now more than ever: everyone has a poem inside them. Some people's poems are close to the surface. Some are buried deeper, hidden behind fear, self-judgement, and cultural norms. Our job is to create spaces where those poems can come out. Where people can be heard.

That's what Languages of the Heart was about. That's what we're going to keep on doing.