Kurdish-Canadian poet humanizes refugees in debut poetry collection

LOS ANGELES, United States (Kurdistan24) – Lozan Yamolky’s debut poetry collection I'm No Hero is heartful and sympathetic, political and personal, passionate and compassionate.

The collection voices the distress of the victims of war and destruction, people who lose their homes and become uninvited and unwelcomed guests in foreign countries.

At a time when an unprecedented 65.3 million people—nearly 34,000 people every day—are forcibly displaced as a result of conflict or persecution, the pertinent I'm No Hero puts a human face on dehumanized refugees.

“You cannot kill me

because I am dying every day.

Can you not see it in the news?

I am counted,

declared collateral damage,

and most times, not mentioned at all. 

I am forgotten

soon after the memorable,

brilliantly colored commercial breaks.

...

You cannot kill me

because poets of the world know about me:

I am the immortal refugee.”

Yamolky's poetry deplores those who dismiss the pain of the displaced either because of profit or out of apathy and ignorance. 

I'm No Hero urges the audience to go back to the time when they had not learned to hate. 

“War is a successful legitimate business. It is legal.

It is politically lawful;

and it is profitable.” 

Additionally, I'm No Hero dabs into little anecdotes of parent-children relationships, loyalty and betrayal, and ethical dilemmas.

Spinning various tales, this Kurdish poet brings in her compassion and empathy into her writing as she speaks diverse characters’ minds.

Published by Silver Bow Publishing in British Columbia, Canada, 2016, Yamolsky’s poetry is described by Ariadne Sawyer as a collection that “shares the joys and sorrows of the world, mixing the beauty of poems with painful reality.”

Born to a Kurdish family in Baghdad in 1972, Yamolsky left home in 1994 for Turkey and settled in Canada in 1995. She is a mother of two sons.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany