A PEN Canada Writer-in-Exile, poet and author Jalal Barzanji fled government persecution and even imprisonment in his native Kurdistan. Barzanji is now based in Edmonton. His book Trying Again to Stop Time is a collection of poems about how his homeland and his adopted land intertwine.

Below, Jalal Barzanji answers eight questions submitted by eight of his fellow writers in the CBC Books Magic 8 Q&A.

For me, spirituality is different than religion. Meditating on nature, contemplating human desire, and hunting the beauty behind everything have allowed me to make spiritual connections with things around me. These connections, I believe, allow me to write from my heart and soul.

In the past, I would usually write late at night, which is a theme for a lot of authors. However, since I've turned 60, I feel as though I've changed into some sort of bird, waking early, making coffee and beginning to write as early as possible. I like to write in a windowless room, to limit distractions. However, if I'm particularly disconnected from the outside world I am able to write in coffee shops and airplanes, etc.

I would choose a piano. I believe it offers the widest range of possible emotions with a limited amount of keys. It can be sad, happy, excited, suspenseful. I feel my stories have varied emotions, so the instrument needs express them well.

At times, in the middle of creating a book, going back to regular life and rushing to work can make me feel frustrated. As Philip Roth says, "I can't be a son, husband and brother, I can only be a writer." His words can sometimes be true, because the immersion of books can be difficult to get out of.

Under Saddam Hussein in Iraq there was an extreme lack of freedom of expression, and the government had an active role in censorship on publication. Due to this, before you submitted your manuscript for printing, it had to pass the censorship department and get an ''OK" stamp. In 1979, I submitted my first collection of poetry under the title Evening Dance in the Snow. It was rejected in censorship. It took three additional attempts, and the exclusion of many poems, to finally get the book published.

I was born and raised in a large family, and due to this I was constantly surrounded by people. As a writer who feeds on calm it became difficult to find an area in which I was able to write. This made it more challenging, but it fortunately didn't dry up my appreciation of writing.

To me, any time I can speak freely and make an interesting connection with the audience, it is an ultimate literary event. One example would be my 2011 book launch for The Man in Blue Pyjamas: A Prison Memoir. The event was part of Edmonton's LitFest, and we were able to put together a panel discussion about the book: how I wrote it during my residency as Edmonton's first Writer-­in-­Exile; how Sabah Salih worked to translate it from Kurdish to English; and how Peter Midgley and I worked together during the editing of the book.

If humans programmed the robot, it would work hard for us, but so far, we cannot get technology to think or write beyond basic ideas. In the future, if technology came to control or program our lives, poetry would become empty of emotion and would no longer reflect human feeling. Maybe then the Governor General's Award jury would announce a robot the winner of this award.