A dinner in Port Moody focusing on refugees through music and poetry will mark the 71st anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
The annual fundraising dinner, to be held Dec. 10 and hosted by members of Tri-Cities Amnesty International, will feature the Vancouver Kurdish Music Ensemble and refugee poet Lozan Yamolky, as well as a video outlining the history of human rights.
“The Tri-Cities is now home for hundreds of refugees from many different countries,” Amnesty member Hazel Postma said in a press release. “Lozan’s poems evoke the sense of loss, as well as the hope, many of them must feel as they come to terms with their new reality.”
Yamolky was born in Iraq of Kurdish descent and, as a young adult, sought asylum in Turkey where she worked as an interpreter for the UN and the Canadian embassy. She moved with her family to Canada in 1995. Her poems reflect the anguish and suffering experienced by refugees. She says her purpose is to “wake up our conscience.”
The dinner, hosted by the Coquitlam restaurant Pasta Polo, takes place at The Old Mill Boathouse, 2715 Esplanade Ave., Port Moody. Tickets are $25 a person and include music, poetry, dinner, dessert and a silent auction. To reserve, go to eventbrite.com/e/80185686547.
First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge that I humbly live on the traditional, unceeded territories of the səlil̓wətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) & xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. Thank you for allowing me to live on your land —Vancouver, BC Canada.
I am a Canadian citizen who migrated from Kurdistan —Present day Northern Iraq, in 1995 after spending over a year as an asylum seeker in Turkey.
I was born and raised in Baghdad in 1972, I am the fifth of eleven children; three boys and seven girls –one brother passed away in infancy.
I am the author of ( I’m No Hero) and ( Counting Waves ) published by: Silver Bow Publishing. I am dedicating my third book of poems ( Dreamers Needed ) to my teenage boys, Trey, 15 and Wyatt, 13.
I started reciting my poems for the first time in 2013 at The Holy Wow Poets Canada in Maple Ridge. I am currently a member of the Canadian Authors Association, Federation of BC Writers, The Royal City Literary Art Society and the Holy Wow Poets Canada. I am presently the secretary of the Royal City Literary Arts Society. I work as a freelance interpreter.
I was commissioned in the fall of 2017 to write a poem about the refugee experience to DaCapo Chamber Choir in Toronto. The event will feature my poem “I am here” in spring 2019.
I was one of the recipients of the 2018 Distinguished Poet Award from WIN– Writers International Network Canada and was 3rd place winner at the 2018 Tagore Festival Peace Poems contest. Since first sharing my poetry in 2013, I have featured in numerous poetry events throughout the Greater Vancouver area.
My work has been published in The Royal City Poets Anthologies (Silver Bow Publishing), The Royal City Literary Arts Society online magazine eZine, Wordplay at Work, Creative Quills Ink Verse (North Vancouver), Celebrate Canada 150 and Culture Days From Far and Wide (Multicultural Creative Writing Collection 2017) and the 2018 Holy Wow Poets Anthology (Maple Ridge).
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Lozan Yamolky 