Niloufar-Lily Soltani Featured Iranian Canadian Poet!

Featured Poet

Niloufar-Lily Soltani was born in Abadan, Iran. She immigrated to Canada with her daughter from Tehran and has resided in Vancouver, BC since 1995.

Lily is a poet and writer and has published a translated script in the UBC Educational Insight, Poetic Corner after taking a one year Theories of Translation course at UBC Creative Writing Department. Lily is working on a novel about inter-racial issues in her home country as well as the role that new generation and young immigrants in Europe and North America play in changing the political situations of their home countries. She is devoted to studying World Literature in her free time.

Lily writes her poems both in Persian and English and flavors her writing by using the passion, expressions, and even some words from her native language. She loves using her translated poems in her fiction and believes her work in English presents her third identity as an artist from two countries.

I have read your poem many many times 

oh your poems,
where do they come from?
Which side of the river of your soul,
grants me such pure water?
how is that your poems can touch my soul but you can’t?

Standing naked,
Under the waterfall of your art,
I bathe my body
and feel the warm water is healing my wounds,
my pains, my sorrows,
how is that  I can drawn myself to this corner of your river?
and feel the immortality that you are giving me,
and feel you and your deepest thoughts.
But I don’t know what to do when I reach the polluted waters,
The only thing I know,
The only way I have always known,
Is running away,
Is leaving,
But I want to stay this time. 

I see that you drew a rainbow,
very far from me,
I grab a handful of the dark water,
and hold it under the colors of the rainbow that you drew.
my tears are warming my face,
my hair is still wet,
my body is cold when I am far from the hot springs,
I am so mortal here behind the spray,
on this side of your river,
I am counting on the rainbow to change the color of the dark water,
and connect me to you again,
to all sides and every corner of you,
you, my immortal river,
I have found you
And you don’t even realize.

Niloufar-Lily Soltani ©