The Poet’s Anthem

by Bänoo Zan / June 29th, 2025

If you believe in war
more than you believe in words
you are not a poet

If you support rockets, tanks, and bombs
assassination, invasion, aggression
occupation, genocide, oppression
terrorism, ethnocentrism, isolationism, expansionism,
more than you support dialogue—

if you justify bloodshed, displacement, starvation,
poverty, censorship, dictatorship,
your god, your nation, autocracy,
free-worldism, third-worldism,
hegemony, colonialism, post-colonialism,
more than you justify the voices of the multitude—

if you believe in weapons more than in verses
you are not a poet

You are a pretender—

Poets wield words
against silence

Let there be words

Let the words bridge the chasm of
savage civilizations

Bänoo Zan is a poet, librettist, translator, teacher, editor and poetry curator, with more than 250 published poems and poetry-related pieces as well as three books including Songs of Exile and Letters to My Father. She is the founder of Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night), Toronto’s most diverse and brave poetry reading and open mic series (inception: 2012). Her social media links are: LinkedIn; Instagram; Facebook; Twitter Bänoo, along with Cy Strom, is the co-editor of the anthology Woman Life Freedom: Poems for the Iranian Revolution. Read other articles by Bänoo.

This article was posted on Sunday, June 29th, 2025 at 8:00am and is filed under Poetry.