About the interviewer:
Wendy Vardaman, Madison, WI, has
a Ph.D. in English from University of Pennsylvania
and a B.S. in Engineering from Cornell University.
Her poems, reviews, and interviews have appeared
in a variety of anthologies and journals, including
Riffing on Strings, Letters to the World, Poet
Lore, qarrtsiluni, Nerve Cowboy, Free Verse, Wisconsin
People & Ideas, Women’s Review of Books,
Rain Taxi Review, Rattle and Portland Review.
Her work has received several Pushcart Prize nominations
and was runner up in 2004 for the Council for
Wisconsin Writers’ Lorine Niedecker Award.
A former university English teacher, she works
for a children’s theater company, The Young
Shakespeare Players. Beginning in 2009 she will
co-edit the Wisconsin poetry journal Free Verse.
Her first collection of poetry, Obstructed View
(Fireweed Press), will also appear in 2009. With
her husband, she home schools two of their three
children.
About interviewee:
Farideh Hassanzadeh-Mostafavi is an Iranian poet, translator and freelance
journalist. Her first book of poetry was published
when she was twenty-two. Her poems appear in the
anthologies Contemporary Women Poets of Iran and
Anthology of Best Women Poets. She is the author
of Eternal Voices: Interviews with Poets East
and West and The Last Night with Sylvia Plath:
Essays on Poetry. In addition she has translated
Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot, Federico Garcia
Lorca: A Life by Ian Gibson, Anthology of Contemporary
African Poetry, Selected Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva,
Women Poets of the World, Twentieth Century Latin
American Poetry, Selected Poems of Iaroslav Seifert,
Pablo Neruda: A Passion for Life, Blood of Adonis
by Samuel Hazo, The Beauty of Friendship: Selected
Poems by Khalil Gibran, Love Poetry of the World,
Classic and Contemporary, and Selected Poems by
Blaga Dimitrova. Her new book is the Anthology
of Contemporary American Poetry.
WV: The internet makes so many
contacts available that were not possible a generation
ago, providing opportunities for exchange, community,
friendship, even "travel" of a sort.
What role does the internet play in your writing?
Has the internet changed you or your poetry? What
have you found are its major advantages and disadvantages?
FHM: One can send love letter
via internet, so the internet is as honest as
carrier pigeons in ancient times! The only difference
is in the lack of need for patience. Internet
doesn't teach us the art of waiting. And what
makes love strong but patience? An Iranian proverb
says: "If you are patient, I’ll turn
sour grapes into sweets!"
In spite of so many contacts and opportunities
for exchange, possible by internet, we rarely
find true friends. In fact we exchange our precious
solitude for communications which rarely go beyond
the surface. The nature of internet because of
its high speed and high possibility in reaching
many people around the world, enriches our ability
for diplomacy of public relations. In our "in
box" we have an international list of men
and women of course, but are they as empathetic
as the silent books in the shelves of our rooms?
I don't deny the windows that internet opens in
the wall of my everyday life . For example through
the internet I found that the most famous American
poets don't know the difference between Iranians
and Arabs. In my interviews with them in response
to my question: what do you know about Iranian
poets? They answer: "We have an anthology
of Arab poetry!"
The internet also gave birth to an ocean of e-magazines.
The worst aspect of e-magazines is the ease of
publishing easy poems and introducing the "I"s
who are thirsty for fame, not poetry itself. Through
the internet every body calls himself or herself
a chief editor and in this bedlam, true poetry
is the poor victim. Once, a picture of your favorite
poet was something like an icon, while now you
may find no difference between poets' pictures
on personal websites and Hollywood stars' pictures.
It is so difficult to remain faithful to our
heart and soul in the age of internet, where every
poet instead of hearing the pure voice of Time
and its honest judgment, hears the noisy sounds
of human praises.
I, personally, have been lucky enough to find
some true voices through the internet who helped
me to find the weak aspects of my poetry and encouraged
me to widen my world. I especially am indebted
to some of Wompo’s members.
WV: At times you take on the
role almost of a cultural ambassador on the Wompo
list, patiently explaining such basic things,
like the fact that Arabic is not the language
of Iran, or the names of major poets. Do you feel
comfortable with this role?
FHM: Thank you very much to
grant me this beautiful nickname: cultural ambassador.
I am proud of myself!
Regrettably, sometimes my cultural explanations
are assumed by some Wompo members as political
proclamations. If I say for Moslem women, head
cover is not the bars of a cage and bikini should
not be assumed as the flag of freedom, they send
me messages to convince me that Iranian women
are very miserable! This is why I have stopped
sending messages to Wompos. I prefer to read their
rich messages on poetry and to avoid any useless
discussions. I translate their poems for my anthologies
with their permission and I do my best to introduce
them to Iranian readers. I also introduce them
in international e-magazines of Iran and India.
WV: In addition to your interviews
of Iranian and Middle Eastern authors, you have
interviewed many American poets; please tell me
about why you conduct these interviews and how
they are received by Iranian readers.
FHM: My need for better spiritual
connection with the poems I translate is my most
important reason for conducting interviews with
poets. In my opinion translation of poetry is
a kind of recreation and it needs deep understanding
of the poet. If I make a connection with the poet,
I'll find it easier to deal with the poems. I
believe it is very important. It is only in this
case that I am able to recreate. Interviews are
great helps to know more about a poet. Even when
I 'm dealing with a deceased poet's work, I try
to summon the spirit of the poet by reading his
or her biography and all information in detail,
e.g. letters, daily notes, etc.
As for the second part of your question: How
these interviews are received by Iranians, I must
say Iranian readers are lovers of American poetry
and are very eager to know more about the American
poets. The translation of my interviews with Adrienne
Rich, Sam Hamill, Billy Collins, Edward Hirsch
and many others has been always received warmly
by Iranian readers. In personal Iranian websites
and blogs you may see part of these interviews
as the best words they've read through the week
or month. Poetry lovers in Iran call me: mirror
of world poetry. I love this nickname!
WV: It isn't easy for a poet
to pick one poem that represents her work as well
as herself. You had the additional requirement
of translating your work from Farsi to English,
which as a translator, you did yourself. Please
tell me how well the poem, "Isn't it enough?"
that you chose to include in the Wompo anthology
Letters to the World represents you. Why did you
choose this poem? Are you a different poet in
different languages?
FHM: Receiving this message
from Kate Evans made me sure that I must choose
a poem about my experience on war for this international
anthology :
"One of the poems I've attached for you
is about, in part, reading about war in the news.
And it makes me almost crazy to realize that I
write about it as something I read about in the
paper, while there are people in the world who
write about it as something they have to experience.
The inhumanity of people to one another in this
world is a form of insanity. Thus, connections
like the one we are having right now are a state
of grace."
As for the second part of your question: "Are
you a different poet in different languages?"
Writing Poetry in English language has helped
me to discover my hidden selves; perhaps because
it reminds me of my voice as a woman from the
East.
Isn't It Enough?
I gave up love
being satisfied with the quiet of shadows
And memories.
Time was past, lost,
moments exploded
by the rain of bombs.
At nightfall
I don’t brush my dreams any more.
At nightfall
I don’t care for the wandering sun any more.
At nightfall
I leave the frightened moon in the sky
to shelter under the ground.
I am neither a woman nor a poet any more.
Night by night
more and more,
I feel real.
Like the bloody sound of alarms,
Like the roaring anti-aircraft rounds,
Like the falling bombs and rockets,
which turn the ruins and ashes
into eternal reality;
I feel night by night more real
and old,
so old and real that in the mirror
I see nothing anymore
but an aisle of empty chairs.
Oh, isn’t it enough?
What does everyone need
more than a loaf of bread,
a quiet night
and an armful of bleak love,
for giving up and being satisfied
with the quiet of shadows
and memories?
WV: When I first encountered
the poems of Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-67),
I immediately thought of Sylvia Plath. Here, for
example, are the opening lines of "Let us
believe in the beginning of the cold season"
(trans., Michael C. Hillmann):
And this is I
a woman alone
at the threshold of a cold season
at the beginning of understanding
the polluted existence of the earth
and the simple and sad pessimism of the sky
and the incapacity of these concrete hands.
To what extent do you think it is useful to link
these two women, both of whom died tragically
in their early 30's during the cold month of February,
each apparently still at the mercy of love and
in a white-hot fervor of writing? Are women poets
in Iran and the United States today more similar
to each other or more different?
FHM: Even death in a cold season
and at the peak of creativity is not a good reason
to find much resemblance between these two women
poets. Sylvia killed herself because she was suffering
from the betrayal of her husband. She was a faithful
wife and a mother in love with her children. Forough
left her husband and her little son to find her
fate and mate in poetry. Regrettably, feminists
and antireligious people in Iran and overseas,
try to introduce Forough as a victim of a patriarchal
religious society. It is not true.They claim she
was forced by her father to marry at 16 but now
everybody knows that she threatened her parents
to commit suicide if they don't let her marry
the man she loved. They introduce her husband
as a dogmatic man who didn't let Forough write
poetry and deprived her from her right as a mother
to see her son. Forough's letters to her husband,
published thirty years after her death by her
son , prove that even after divorce she was deeply
supported by her kind, generous and loyal husband
who never married again and devoted all his life
to their son. He was himself a writer and painter.
As for her poetry, Forough 's poems could make
themselves free from personal problems and pay
attention to the world around her, while Sylvia
Plath 's poems speak of "self,” even
when she writes about others. "Lack of love"
for Forough, was a universal wound, not a personal
pain:
And my wounds are all the wounds of love
I have piloted this wondering island
Through raging tempests
and volcanoes
And disintegration was the secret of
that unique being
Each little particle of which gave birth to the
sun
I see more resemblance between Forough and Russian
poet Marina Tsvetaeva. Both women were more loyal
to love than to the men of their life, and both
of them were more devoted to the truth of poetry
than to the reality of life.
Yet let me admit that If Iran has one Forough
Farrokhzad, America has many, many, many "Forough
Farrokhzad"s. As a translator of women’s
poetry and world poetry, I can attest that North
America and Latin America have the best women
poets of the world.
WV: Who are your favorite Iranian
poets? Which would you suggest to an American
audience with no knowledge of Iranian traditions,
and what would you want them to keep in mind about
Iranian poetry while reading?
FHM: The first poet who moved
me was Sheikh Saadi (1184-1283). I was in high
school. These lines by him were in our text book:
Leaves of green tree
in the eyes of an insightful
each page is a book of
God's knowledge.
My father's house had a beautiful garden in front
of it. There were many trees and flowers, but
before reading this poem I had never imagined
the leaves of those trees as the pages of a book
written by God.
The most important thing in Saadi's poem for
me was not God of course. The words themselves
had a strange influence on me. They had the power
to wash my eyes to see things around me in a new
way. The poem itself was knowledge. It was as
beautiful as a finger pointing to some destination,
more mysterious and thought provoking than the
destination. I began to read very eagerly the
biographies of poets instead of reading religious
books. In my eyes they were prophets. After Saadi,
many poets influenced me from Molana Jallaledin
Rumi (1207 –1273 ) to Tahere Saffarzadeh(1936-
2008). Rumi
I learned from them to see with the eyes of the
heart not with the eyes of the head. This is the
first step to write poetry, I think.
As for introducing an American audience with
no knowledge of Iranian traditions to our poetry,
I must mention four important poets: Hafiz, Saadi,
Molana and Ferdousi. Their poems are in fact the
real borders of our country; so when reading our
poetry, every foreign reader must keep in mind
that our country will never be invaded by any
army, simply because Iranians' identity is poetry.
WV: You have published an anthology
of contemporary women's poetry. What themes, if
any, does that poetry share? Are Iranian women
writers more similar to Iranian male writers,
to women writers in other countries, or to both?
Who are some of your favorite female poets?
FHM: That anthology introduces
women poets of the 20th century and I selected
poems which deal with important fragments of the
history of the 20th century: the Second World
War, the rise of Communism, Stalin's Russia and
different totalitarian regimes.
As for Iranian women writers, most of them write
as a woman, so they are not similar to male writers.
Especially after Forough Farrokhzad the Iranian
women poet learned to find her voice and speak
for her own subjects. Among the women who write
novels, we have fine and strong writers like Zoya
Pirzad, and Fariba Vafi but I think they are not
comparable with great women novelists of the world
like Margaret Atwood. Yet I admire writers like
Goli Tarraghi who writes about Iranian families,
and her stories are a very vivid and clear portrait
of our years before and after revolution. Among
poets, we have great poets like Simin Behbahani,
Forrough Farrokhzad and professor Dr. Tahere Saffarzadeh.
The latter recently died. She had found real poetry
in the Koran, and translated it to English. This
translation is really a masterpiece.
WV: What subjects have most
interested contemporary women poets in Iran? Do
you think female poets worldwide have any special
responsibility or relation to particular subjects,
such as domestic life and politics?
FHM: Forough Farrokhzad in one
of her famous poems comes to this strange conclusion
that to be a poet is a green delusion in comparison
with being a wife and a mother.
Have in mind please that she left her husband
and little son for the sake of poetry. After her
divorce and at the peak of fame and success she
wrote:
Which peak, which summit?
O simple words of deception What did you give
me?
If I stuck a flower in my own hair,
Would it not be more alluring
Than this fraud, than this paper crown?
Give me refuge, O simple whole women
Whose slender fingertips
Trace
The exhilarating movement of a fetus beneath the
skin
And in whose opened blouses
The air always mingles with the smell of fresh
milk.
Adapted from the poem: “Green Delusion,”
Translated by Michael Hillmann
The poem ends with these terrifying lines :
"Look,
You never progressed,
Yours has been a descent."
I find this poem as the manifesto of women’s
poetry: a woman ignoring her nature withers instead
of growing.
Iranian women’s poetry never fell in the
well of feminism even through Forough Farrokhzad's
poetry. In her last poems she reaches a very rich
and strong poetry, not in the cage of "self"
any more.
In my opinion, feminism is a well of personal
poetry, which poets like Sylvia Plath and Ann
Sexton deepened more and more. I prefer Adrienne
Rich or Emily Dickenson or Gabriela Mistral. In
Iran poets like Simin Behbahani and Tahere Saffarzadeh
could go beyond their personal problems too, and
you may find in their poetry eternal songs of
most beautiful Muses for peace, love and liberty.
I agree with Medbh McGuckian when she says:
I have a great affection for the picture of Emily
Bronte 's loaves rising, but am fonder of Tsvetaeva,
one daughter living, one daughter dead, clearing
a defiant space on the kitchen table.
To be torn apart by births or revolutions or both,
and survive at least for a time, is a prerequisite
for the fullest genuine genius to flower.
(Delighting the heart: a note book by women writers)
WV: In the poem, “Birdsong,”
by Rumi, Grief tells the poet, who declares that
"sorrow is sweet”: “You’ve
ruined my business./How can I sell sorrow,/when
you know it’s a blessing?” As a poet
who has experienced both birth and revolution,
tell me, do you think of sorrow as a blessing?
FHM: I know happiness as the
most beautiful aspect of perfection or eminence.
I even find it the true meaning of virtue. Yet
if we can reach it through the dark tunnels of
sorrow, I find it sweet too. Edith Södergran,
the Swedish poet (1892 - 1923), has written a
love poem for pain because of its sweet fruit
sorrow:
Do you know pain?
She is strong and big with secretly clenched fists.
Do you know pain? She is a hopeful smile with
eyes red with tears.
Pain gives us all what we need—
She gives us the keys to the realm of death
She pushes us through the gate when we still hesitate.
Pain baptizes the children and remains awake with
the mothers
And forges all the golden-rings.
Pain rules over everything, she smoothes the brow
of the thinker,
She clasps the jewel round the neck of the desired
woman,
She stands by the door when a man is leaving his
love …
Luck has no song,
luck has no thoughts, luck has nothing.
Push your luck so that she breaks, for luck is
evil.
Luck comes softly in the whisper of morning among
the sleeping bushes ,
Luck glides away in the light images of clouds
over deep blue depths,
Luck is the field that sleeps in the burning heat
of noon,
Or the endless expanse of the sea under the piercing
vertical rays,
Luck is powerless, she sleeps and breathes and
does not know anything …
What else does pain give to the ones she loves
?
She gives pearls and flowers, she gives songs
and dreams,
She gives us a thousand kisses which are all empty,
She gives us the only kiss that is true.
She gives us our strange souls and curious desires,
She gives to all the highest gain in the life:
Love, loneliness and the face of death .
WV: Tell me about your writing
life: you’re a poet, a journalist, an anthologist,
an interviewer—do you find yourself pulled
in many different directions, or do the different
kinds of writing intersect and contribute to each
other? Do you have a favorite?
FHM: Some poets treat the Muse
of poetry like a slave. She must come with them
shadow by shadow to serve them. That is why their
poetry is spiritless, full of routines. I try
to go on my way, leaving the Muse of poetry to
find herself. My activities as translator, journalist,
anthologist and interviewer make possible my mind
to enrich itself and wait patiently for return
of the Muse whenever she wants. Then we can enjoy
discussing with each other. I give her my thoughts
and she grants me her feelings.
WV: You are also a wife and
a mother. To what extent have those relationships,
and the fabric of daily life, been part of your
poetry? Are there differences in general between
the way American and Iranian women poets approach
the relation between domesticity and poetry?
FHM: The daily life of a woman
is her kingdom: dishes, laundry, children, husband,
unfinished works and unreachable solitude. Without
this kingdom, a woman's poetry is a ghost, condemned
to be influenced by literature, not by real things
and relationships. As for my poetry, I think if
you take daily life from it, you will not find
even one drop of blood in its body any more! Even
when I speak about politics, my words try to show
my worries as a woman and mother for the lost
peace.
Regarding the differences between Iranian and
American women poets, I find a main difference:
Iranian women write to make the bonds stronger,
while American women write to reach more independence.
Both of them dream of freedom: Iranian women in
the cage of love and American women in the cage
of feminism.
WV: What do you think about the
relation between poetry and politics? Is there
a poet you particularly like who negotiates well
between poetry and political content? Could you
share a poem that you have written about motherhood
and politics?
FHM: According to an Iranian
poet : "poetry" is indeed the art of
not to mean what you say, "politics"
the art of not to say what you mean. So political
poetry is a contradiction in terms like a modern
dinosaur! or Holy War! or childless mother! That
is why he asks: "What is political poetry
about, if not about logic-breaking realities?"
I personally used to find the words above the
clouds before the war. The falling of bombs from
the sky exiled my poetry to the basement, where
I should seek refuge. Honestly my words can never
trust the clouds any more!
And here is my poem about motherhood and politics:
A Letter from an Iranian Mother to an American
Mother
If as a tourist
your son comes to my country
my son will be kind with him
Simply because in our religion
a guest is a gift of God
even if he is our long-standing enemy.
We will share our bread with him
And we'll offer him
the green shadows of trees
So that your son feels at home
And walking in the streets with your son,
Shoulder to shoulder,
like a kind sister
My daughter will dedicate to him
poem by poem
The spirit of her mother land
Like Marina Tsvetaeva
Who dedicated Moscow to Mandelstam
Church by church
And the small pigeons also that rise over them
If as a soldier
your son comes to my country
My son will be a defender
While your beloved son has no choice
But to be a killer
And if he, God forbidden, my only son, dies
My sigh will kill your son everyday.
His tongue will shrivel to dust
Because it didn't say no to the dictator
His eyes will fall out of their sockets
Because they didn't see the human rights
And lastly
His heart will be the portion of hungry dogs
Simply because an aggressor doesn't deserve a
heart.
Surely because an aggressor doesn't deserve a
heart.
And who more than you as a mother believes
In the power of my sigh as a mother?
a burning sigh which turns into an invisible fire
stronger than nuclear bombs.
much stronger than nuclear bombs.
Then, in the absence of our beloved sons,
you and I will have no one but God
The same God who makes flow the milk
in mother's breast.
[A note on "sigh": Iranians believe
in the "sigh," or "ah," a
deep breath to express sadness. For them the sigh
of the oppressed, impresses. The sighs of the
oppressed pursue the oppressor, and the oppressor
is doomed to be punished. It will happen by a
mysterious power in nature. We try to warn against
cruelty by admonishing: "his or her sigh
will burn your life."]
Among political poets I admire Dr. Samual Hazo,
Mahmoud Darwish, Naomi Shihab Nye, Adrienne Rich,
Forrough Farrokhzad, Tahereh Saffarzadeh and South
American poets.
WV: Your poem ends with these
lines:
Then, in the absence of our beloved sons,
you and I will have no one but God
the same God who makes the milk flow
in mother's breast.
What are your thoughts about the relationship
of poetry and religion? Would you make a distinction
between God and religion, between religion and
spirituality?
FHM: I, by nature was incapable
of prayer and resignation. Only through poetry
and literature could I reach metaphysics. The
first time I believed in God with all my heart
was the morning after giving birth to my child.
I found my breasts full of milk. What a strange
feeling! I needed to stand and pray. I never forgot
that morning.
For many years I had in mind to describe that
moment in a poem but I couldn't . Writing the
above poem (a letter from an Iranian mother to
an American mother), in the second stanza, with
the flowing of blood, I remembered the flowing
of milk, and I couldn't resist to put an end with
the name of God.
As a mother I am sure God 's message is spirituality
h. He wants us to enrich our spirits instead of
having intolerance regarding our religious ideas.
WV: Do you think women poets
worldwide have any special role with respect to
poetry or to each other? In what ways does Wompo
facilitate that role? Are there any changes that
could help Wompo serve women poets who do not
live in the United States better?
FHM: Without women, poetry loses
her fountainhead. Wompo members from east to west
give it depth and brightness by exchanging their
experiences. Any political prejudice or social
prejudgment will make muddy this limpid water.
As for the last part of your question: if Wompo
wants to help women poets who don't live in America,
first it must help her own American members by
encouraging them to be brave as poets. One Wompo
wrote a letter to me when I asked her permission
to publish my interview with her in Iran. Here
is a part of that letter:
If, God forbid, we were to go to war with your
country and my sentiments were to appear in your
press, I am afraid they could be construed as
anti-American propaganda and potentially get me
in trouble. I do not believe for a moment that
you would use my comments in this way, but others
might.
What is the meaning of such a message but this:
Let poetry be a motto, not an honest thing related
to our real life.
WV: Do you like to travel? What
place would you most like to visit outside of
Iran that you have never been?
FHM: I prefer the corner of
my solitude and my books to all countries. The
last time I traveled, in the airport of Geneva
I was separated from other passengers because
I was an Iranian. All the beauties of that city
lost their color in my eyes. I could stay for
three months but I came back after one week to
my innocent mother land where it was caught in
an imposed war directed by America.
I only wish I could visit the tomb of Marina
Tsvetaeva in Russia, unknown in a mass grave.
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