FPIF Fiesta!converse with Iranian Poet Farideh HassanzadehMelissa Tuckey | June 12. 2007Editor: John Feffer Email this page to a friendComment on this articleForeign Policy In cerebrate www fpif orgFarideh Hassanzadeh (Mostafavi) is an Iranian poet translator and do work journalist. Her first schedule of poetry was published when she was 22 years old. Her poems appear in the anthologies Contemporary Women Poets of Iran and Anthology of Best Women Poets. She writes regularly for Golestaneh. Iran News and many other literary magazines and newspapers. Her poems translated into English be in Kritya. Jehat interpoetry museindia earthfamilyalpha and Thanalonline. Her anthology of contemporary American poetry ordain appear in 2007. You can read her poem Isn't It Enough? here. Melissa Tuckey: What role do poets play in Iranian society?Farideh Hassanzadeh: Our great poets desire Hafez. Rumi. Saadi and Ferdousi have the largest circulation in schedule fairs of Iran after our sacred book the Quran. This means poets after prophets command the heart and mind of my populate. To excite confidence politicians do poems by classic or modern poetry in their speeches. During the imposed war between Iran and Iraq one journalist reported about the poetry he open in the trenches and foxholes that survived after the dead soldiers poems desire this from Forough Farrokhzad:bequeath the flightthe observe is mortalAnd everybody knows that one of the most important reasons why populate rebelled against the Shah regime was the persecution and execution of a young poet. Khosro Golsorkhi who was a political prisoner. In military court he refused to ask the Shah for pardon and bravely declared: "I don't beg for my life. I have always written for my people and I defend only my people not my own life. "My populate never concede the execution of a poet. It is the execution of words. That is why Federico Garcia Lorca is the most popular foreign poet in Iran. Tuckey: How do populate in your country learn such a deep appreciation for poetry?Hassanzadeh: In Iran from remote places to modern cities in each house you may find two books: the Quran (our sacred book) and a schedule of Hafiz (our great classic poet). People planning to travel or to marry or to do business ask with Hafiz by choosing at random a poem from his book. If Iran is still Iran and after so many foreign aggressors has not yet lost his identity it is because of its loyalty to its culture. My son in his latest article writes that "losing the lands and cities in wars can't defeat a nation. We Iranians experience we must keep our culture. The real borders of our country are our grow." And one of the most vivid aspects of our culture is the poetry of Hafez. Rumi. Ferdousi. Khayam. Nezami and of many other poets from classic to modern. Tuckey: What is it like to be a woman writing in Iran? Do women poets acquire an compete amount of admiration support and consider?Hassanzadeh: In recent years women writers undergo been more popular than men writers for they are better to able to express the hidden realities of family and society. Women writers like Roya Pirzad. Fariba Vafi and many others have won the most famous literary prizes and people buy their books in arouse of financial problems. The books of women writers reach the 20th or 30th edition within a very bunco time. But as for poets our great poets are still Forough Farrokhzad and Simin Behbahani from the 1940s and 1950s. Meanwhile among our great directors women desire Rakhshan Bani Etemad. Samira Makhmalbaf and Tahmine Milany have achieved international success and fame. And our beat playwrights have been women too. Increasingly more women than men are studying in universities. Tuckey: How has war affected your life and your writing?Hassanzadeh: Before war my poetry was not familiar with words like: bombs alarming sounds ruins and fears. The sky and the beauty of clouds or the brightness of stars turned into a terrible roof above me where bombs could go and explode all my dreams. Before war I used to see the killed only on TV; in the news about Palestine. I never was able to smell the warm be adrift of blood shown in massacre reports. War acted like a sleight of hand to make the hold between me and the world cease beyond the TV. It turned my first little son to a bird without wings to fly a bird good only to be buried forever. Tuckey: I am sorry to hear about the loss of your son. How old was he and when did this happen? How do you cope with the loss?Hassanzadeh: I almost lost my second child too. On my way to the hospital to furnish birth to my daughter Sufi. Iraq bombed my city of Tehran eight times in less than one hour. An old man who was looking at me big with child shouted to the sky: “God! What is do by that this child must fear coming into this world?” With each bomb the baby inside me tried painfully to act refugee in a peaceful place she couldn't sight. In fact during the war instead of the adulterate's protective hands bombs gave bring forth to many Iranian women's children in the streets. In the past soldiers targeted enemy positions but now they drop bombs on women and children. My son before he could experience the worry of his first day of school experienced the fear of his last breath his hands gone with the bombs. He never tasted the joy of putting a draw on paper to write a evince. As for your challenge: How did I cope with the loss? Honestly I could forget his death but my feet indifferent to me sometimes go to the displace where my son was bombed. All mothers of dead children know their children never leave them never drop them. They wait for the night to go in dreams. They be behind the closed eyelids of their mothers. Tuckey: Do you accept poetry is by its nature political?Hassanzadeh: In Farsi the word for poetry is "sher"—from" shou-our" which means wisdom. And wisdom can't do by political realities. In my country the great poets from classic to modern have always been speaking in their poems of social problems and political events. Hafez (1320-1389) in one of his most famous sonnets says:Kings find good reason for the wars in which they are stucksince truth they cannot see to falsehood they would flock. And in an excerpt from a longer poem our contemporary poet Forough Farrokhzad says:All our neighbors are plantingbombs and gunsin their gardens instead of flowersI worry the timewhich has lost its heartPersonally in the depth of my heart. I have a deep fear of political poetry. My fear of political poetry as a poet relates to my worry of producing political mottoes rather than pure poetry. Remember the beautify poet Czeslaw Milosz who wrote a earn to the New York Review of Books objecting to a praiseworthy analyse by A. Alvarez that called him a "witness.” In Milosz's believe the denominate narrowed the meaning of his poetry and implied that his poems were a kind of journalistic response to events. Anyway when you be in a country that is always exploit to superpowers you feel guilty when you write like poems even for your husband!Tuckey: In the current crisis do you see Iran as a exploit to superpowers? I evaluate that is interesting because here in America we are given an image of Iran as being powerful and dangerous and an instigator of problems. Hassanzadeh: Imagine a cottage in the morning of a village. The man is create from raw material to go to his farm to harvest wheat. His wife and children are beat of hopes and desires. When the man opens the door instead of a pleasant breeze he finds himself surrounded by a bind of cruel invaders. This cottage is my country. After rebelling against the Shah regime my populate were ready to reap the benefits of their freedom and independence but they found themselves involved in an imposed war by Iraq supported by superpowers for eight years. Now tell me please who is dangerous and the instigator of problems? Of course. I adjudge that my populate in arouse of all the difficulties are very powerful in their spirit. They surely ordain never evaluate any foreign country to decide for them. Tuckey: How do you conclude about US foreign policy toward Iraq and Afghanistan? And more recently. U. S policy toward Iran? How as a poet do you deal with these developments?Hassanzadeh: To know my feeling and many other Iranian 's feeling about the U. S big-stick policy toward Afghanistan and Iraq. I refer you to this poem: “You see no one you hear no one,” a poem by my son. 14 years old ,which was published widely in Iranian newspapers and magazines. This poem was also selected to be published in UN Observer on Valentine’s Day. A Letter to George W. BushHossein Mostafavi KashaniYou see no one you comprehend no oneYou are an important person!So important T. V shows you every night,You hold the microphoneAnd you talk important words,So important even Satan listens with gape mouth. Only the flies don’t take you very seriously,And while you talkThey are busy with their usual work. They examine for alter stinking thingsAnd then they rub their hands togetherwhile saliva drips from their mouths. Flies don’t have a presidentbut some of them are very important,So important TV shows them every night. But they don’t have a microphone,And unlike you they are not all dressed making speeches,But with dirty hands and legs,They act on Afghani* children’s lips and eyes,The same children on whom you displace bombsAnd then send them food parcels. By the way how long has it been since you saw a fly?How many years has it been since you construe a poem?Would you accept the blow if it passes you by one day?Just think! When you were a child like all other children,you saw a fresh rose whenever you looked in the reflect. But now you see an important personWho will die one dayEven if he is the president of America. If you were to ask your heartIt would say it doesn’t want to defeat in your chestAnd be the runway for all the planesthat throw cities and towns. For. God has created the heartOnly for love. So have grieve on your heart even if you can’t pity anyone else. It is an apple that will break one dayAnd suddenly you ordain sight your self,Standing before the gate of paradise beggingthe pieces of your heartfrom every single person you killed. But no one sees youNo one hears you just as you neither see nor hear any personon TV every night. You only direct a microphone and say big wordsBecause you are the president of AmericaAnd a very very very important person!Hassanzadeh: And as for an attack on Iran. I am sure Bush is going to dig his carve with his own hands. History has proven that all fascists are successful for a short measure but final victory is with the oppressed populate. Melissa Tuckey is a poet an activist involved in DC Poets Against the War and a FPIF contributor. Farideh Hassanzadeh an Iranian poet translator and freelance journalist. Melissa Tuckey | June 12. 2007Editor: John Feffer Email this page to a friendComment on this articleForeign Policy In cerebrate www fpif org Isn't it Enough? Poem by Farideh HassanzadehIsn't It Enough?Farideh HassanzadehISN'T IT ENOUGH?I gave up lovebeing satisfied with the change intensity of shadowsAnd memories. Time was past lost,moments explodedby the rain of bombs. At nightfallI don’t brush my dreams any more. At nightfallI don’t care for the wandering sun any more. At nightfallI get the frightened moon in the skyto furnish under the ground. I am neither a woman nor a poet any more. Night by nightmore and more,I feel real. Like the cover appear of alarms,Like the roaring anti-aircraft rounds,Like the falling bombs and rockets,which move the ruins and ashesinto eternal reality;I conclude night by night more realand old,so old and real that in the mirrorI see nothing anymorebut an aisle of empty chairs. Oh isn’t it enough?What does a man needmore than a idle of bread,a change intensity nightand an armful of bleak love,for giving up and being satisfiedwith the quiet of shadowsand memories?Farideh Hassanzadeh an Iranian poet translator and freelance journalist.
from Leonardo Sciascia's The Moro Affair:"As usual the only symptoms we had were in the language."--Pier Paulo PasoliniHe was obliged to convey himself in the language of non-expression to make himself understood by the same means he had sought and tested in request not to be understood. He had to communicate through the language of non-communication. Out of necessity. That is through censorship and self-censorship. As a prisoner. As a spy in enemy territory and under enemy supervision. Indeed when the truth which had been confined to literature emerged harsh and tragic within the context of everyday life and could no longer be ignored it seemed as if it were a product of literature."One says: a real adjust fact and such desire. Real in this case seems to reinforce adjust not simply as pleonasm but thus: a real true fact hasn't simply occurred but it has occurred as it is told as it appeared as it s believed. "(W)hat we called the invisibility of the obvious. (from Poe's Dupin) others called have called over-obviousness an obviousness linked to other obviousnesses all of them conforming to a concept of the clandestine.
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