Review: Dreamers Needed by Lozan Yamolky

Lozan Yamolky has written an honest, courageous and important book of personal and political poetry. I love the call and response and the use of repetition in several of the poems. It is filled with powerful poems. A Refugee Child Talking speaks to the pain and hopelessness of the refugee experience. Peace Treaty is a powerful statement about unseen horror and destruction that is experienced by its victims before leaders get to glorify themselves in the honour of a ceasefire. The book is about a desire to change the world, to not only see what’s wrong with it, but to fix it. It’s very positive in that respect. It is not only a call for justice in the world. Fundamentally, I think it’s about love on multiple; levels, the love of her sons, and the love for a world that is hurting. Warrior Up and Dreamers needed are clarion calls for us to show the love we have for the world in our actions. A Mothers Love is about her unbreakable bond her son, emphasized with the refrain “I knew would always love you.”. I’ve just selected a few poems here, but I found the entire collection moving and powerful. I highly recommend it, especially for those who care about the state of the world and those who inhabit it.

About the author: Lozan Yamolky is a Canadian citizen who migrated from Kurdistan —Present day Northern Iraq, in 1995 after spending over a year as asylum seeker in Turkey. Born in Baghdad in 1972, Lozan is the fifth of eleven children; three boys and seven girls –one brother passed away in infancy. Lozan is the author of I’m No Hero (Silver Bow Publishing 2016) and Counting Waves (Silver Bow Publishing 2017). She is dedicating this third poetry book to her teenage boys, Trey, 15 and Wyatt, 13. Lozan started reciting her poems for the first time in 2013 at The Holy Wow Poets Canada in Maple Ridge. She is a member of the Canadian Authors Association and presently the secretary of the Royal City Literary Arts Society. She works as a freelance interpreter. In 2017, Lozan was commissioned to write a poem about the refugee experience to DaCapo Chamber Choir in Toronto. The event will feature her poem “I am here” in spring 2019. Lozan was the recipient of a 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 her poetry in 2013, she has featured in numerous poetry events throughout the Greater Vancouver area. Her poems have been published in The Royal City Poets Anthologies (Silver Bow Publishing), The Royal City Literary Arts Society online magazine, Wordplay at Work, Creative Quills Ink Verse (North Vancouver), the 2018 Holy Wow Poets Anthology and a short story in the Celebrating Canada 150 and Culture Days From Far and Wide (Multicultural Creative Writing Collection 2017).Her poems have been published in several journals and anthologies.