Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Bilingual” by Bänoo Zan.

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Bilingual

By Bänoo Zan

I punch verbs—slit vowels—

slaughter syntax—

hang language—

from foreign

scaffold-s—

plead guilty—

to xeno-philia—

plot skirmishes

against mono-

lingual-s—

At best: my loyalties are divided

At worst: I am a double agent—

two-tongued

border-crossing illegal—

post-lingual

mirror—

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Copyright © Bänoo Zan

Previously published in Building Brudiges (Immigrant Writers Association 2019). First appeared in Poetry Pause on August 7, 2020.

Bänoo Zan is a poet, translator, essayist, and poetry curator, with more than 280 published pieces and three books including Songs of Exile and Letters to My Father. She is the founder of Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night), Canada’s most diverse and brave poetry open mic (inception 2012). It is a brave space that bridges the gap between communities of poets from different ethnicities, nationalities, religions (or lack thereof), ages, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, poetic styles, voices, and visions. Bänoo, along with Cy Strom, is the co-editor of the poetry anthology: Woman, Life, Freedom: Poems for the Iranian Revolution.

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