Lida Amiri

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Lida Amiri is a poet currently based in Liverpool who performed a selection of her poetry in various performance spaces. With her multilingual work, she explores political and personal matters. During the day-time, she is a PhD candidate aiming to defy Afghan stereotypes in a post-9/11 world. 

"I was a refugee before I was born. As a new-born infant, I was seeking asylum, while spending my first years in limbo. In other words, my parents moved in and out a total of 7 refugee housing projects before I turned 1 year old 

Originally, my parents fled the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s and arrived in Germany in 1986, where I was born".

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Weird, are you?

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Forcing a smile, avoiding cultural clashes 

Looking around the room 1001 times, when entering for the first time

از برای خدا!                                                                                             

You cannot blend in

Don’t - even try to - fit in

Simmering like Mâdarjân’s qorma

The temperature is at a low setting,

But I can feel it slowly burning my wings

Waiting until it is boiling 

Like chay

Possible any minute of the day 

to unleash a scream like an Afghan kettle

Is this anxiety that makes me heart race?

But they don’t believe in it.

Mental health struggles exist

Only for the privileged 

Or, am I?