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Interview
Volume 1 | Issue 4 | February 2007 | 





 
Who is a true poet

By Farideh Hassan Zadeh
 

 

In my interview with Iranian poet Maryam Ala Amjadi ,I received a very beautiful answer to my question :


Who is a true poet ? Please read her answer and enjoy it .She is only 22 years old.

Farideh Hassan Zadeh: who is a true poet?

A:I think our first true poet was the Shahrzad of the One thousand and one nights, although what has remained of her today is not considered poetry but I believe her to be the true narrator of life in the most symbolic of ways. Her literature was the literature of necessity and vitality. It was a matter of life and death to her to paint out life in the wildest of fantasies, every night. To her, literature was life itself. The savior and the Jesus inside that each and every person needs to get by in the darkest of hours. The stories that flowed out of her were bread to her life and each night of suspension was another opportunity to delay what would exile her to an island devoid of all meanings. Shahrzad was a true believer in life. One who understands and appreciates it or rather one who appreciates the appreciation part more than the understanding. Life is a necessity, not an addiction. Addiction is something that keeps sticking on to you all the time but necessity is something you run after no matter what the ups and downs of the way do to you. But that is just one side of the story. Shahrzad is great in many other ways. She is also the prophetess of the Promise Land. She narrates the mystery, the beauty and the peace of the Promised Land. She pats on our shoulders and says "Hey, take it easy, there IS a brighter day!" but how does she do this? By the end of thousandth night shahrzad manages to make the malevolent king Shahryar to believe in the things he has lost confidence to trust in. Deep concepts like beauty, peace of mind, love and etc which give life meaning. Shahrzad regenerated all these beauties in him by the power of her literature and her patience.
Now as Erich Fromm wrote in his meaningful book "The Art of Loving", the earth is always symbolized as a woman (mother earth) and according to the Old Testament, the Promised Land is the land of "Milk and Honey". Here Fromm says that any mother can feed her child with milk, a liquid that gives life and symbolizes the acceptance of life and growth but rarely, truly rarely can one find a mother who feeds her child with honey too, a substance so sweet that bequeaths love for life. What Fromm meant was that a true mother would give her child the ability to accept and then above all to love life.
Shehrzad does all this by the power of her literature. I am not talking just about didactic literature but a literature that commits itself to revealing, questioning, accepting and then loving life just as it is. The mother in her feeds the forsaken and helpless child in him with honey. She pacifies and tames his rebelling fears by making him to love life. Any poet can be a true depicter of life, just like a reporter who states facts. But not all poets question, challenge and generate love for life
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