Speculation is a fool's game, but I've seen many political projections that look like the Taliban could hold most of the country, and possibly Kabul, within perhaps a short time.

I worked with two young women translators. One died and the other received a death threat from the Taliban.

The power of the voice in rap is about the expression of truth, rather than the expression of some kind of artifice. Landays, they're about love and pleasure and oppression and levels of oppression within a family. And because of that, I think rap music is probably closely related.

If we think about folk forms, they belong to disenfranchised people, people who have not been allowed access to the poetry of literature or the leisure time that comes with the pursuit of poetry. Instead, this is ceremony. This is a highly charged way to create a sacred space that isn't necessarily about God, but is about human experience at its most profound levels - whether that's love or grief, separation, or homeland. All are altered states.

Poetry isn't as relevant in the Western world as it is in Afghanistan. And not many people make time for something that doesn't feel relevant.

News isn't designed to talk about daily life in its nuances, but poetry is.

The truth is, terrorism flourishes in places of injustice rather than in places of poverty.