Thursday, October 27, 2022

Saba Pakdel : roots

 

For Woman, Life, Freedom

 

an inability
an unwillingness
swelling in me

               
teething – blood in my sore gums
               
cannot up(roots)

that I exist
that I resist

that I do not forget
that I am unable to un-remember

the pain bodied of my mother(land)

her hair

              combing every morning
             
fall over my shoulders
that I carry

that I continue her being
that I am the being

that I am
            
the (mother)land

 


October 2022

 

 

 

Saba Pakdel is a poet, modernist scholar, and PhD student in the English department at University of Victoria. She specializes in migration studies and contemporary literature with a focus on exile, refugee, and immigration problems, particularly in works of migrant authors from the Global South. In May 2022, Saba published her chapbook In-Between by above / ground press. www.sabapakdel.com