CP: In conversation with with Farideh Hassanzadeh
Farideh Hassan Zadeh( Mostafavi)
FH: The terrible irony: it is possible not to be a very nice kind of person and at the same time be a marvellous poet. It appears as if this may not be possible but I do see that it happens. What is your idea?
CP: I think it happens. Great writers could be in company with great political criminals. Ezra Pound is an example for this. Nietzsche espoused the idea of superman and this superman came into reality in the form of Hitler. I have read that an imprisoned poet found pleasure in smelling the fouls he gathered from his anus! These are perversions. Poetry must be love, poetry must be kindness and empathy; Fide Erken and the like are my ideal in this matter. See for example:
In A Daisy Field
( a poem by Fide Erken)
I'm rolling
In a poetry field,
Where so many daisies abound,
A soft breeze bringing their mist.
I'm smelling them,
Satisfied with watching their
White, yellow appearance,
So I don't need to write a poem.
Then your name is echoed
Amongst the petals,
Spreading this wonderful sound
All around the waving daisies. The most beautiful name I've ever known
It's enough to hear
We smile to each other,
Me and the daisies.
The other poet I mentioned smells dirt and enjoy, Fide, on the other hand tries to smell the beauties of the world.
FH: I strongly agree with Kafka’s statement that “war, in its first phase, emerges out of total lack of sense of imagination.” How do you view the main source of war?
CP: War comes from greed. The Malayalam poet Kunjan Nambiar who lived about three centuries ago wrote:
“Kanakam Moolam Kamini Moolam
Kalaham Palavidham Ulakil Sulabham”
(Because of gold and women, quarrels are plenty in this world.)
I hope you have heard of Gautama the Buddha; the great prophet of Buddhism, the sixth century BC Indian religion. He preached a moderate path. He said: 1. Life is full of misery, 2. Desire is the cause of misery, 3. Suppression of desires is the way to overcome misery and 4. A middle path, neither of sensuality nor of asceticism, should be followed to suppress desire. The middle path is an eight-fold path for the Buddha. 1. Right belief, 2. Right aim, 3. Right speech, 4. Right Action, 5. Right means of livelihood, 6. Right effort, 7. Right attention, and 8. Right meditation. It is meant for man. However, wars are being fought in the name of religion, whereas the agenda of religion is life after death! War is a crime just as terror is, even graver.
FH: What do you think of anthologies of love poetry? I think it takes the hearts out of great poets, as if the rest of their poems were irrelevant. May I also know your feelings about anthologies of social and political poetry?
CP: Love is a basic emotion and hunger is a basic physical function. So, both are relevant. Love poetry is sure to carry every poet to an extent where he/she has no control. Kamala Surayya is one among them. Rati Saxena is another. As there is hunger and war and terror, political and social poetry will find a place in man’s history. I do not deny their importance. The main problem with them is craft. In Malayalam, M. Mukundan has overcome the problem of craft; Basheer had over come this. Archibald Mc Leach had overcome the problem of love poetry, in the same manner; he did not allow his poetry to dictate to him, instead he dictated to his poetry:
Come, said the Muse,
Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,
Sing me the Universal.
In this broad Earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness & the slag,
Enclosed & safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed of Perfection.
By every life a share, or more or less,
None born but it is born—conceal'd or
unconceal'd the seed is waiting.
FH: Would you like to visit my country? What do you know of Iran? Which Iranian writers are you acquainted with?
CP: I would like to. I know Iran is a great country, with a great and ancient civilization; Medes and Persians and other people that inhabited the region; Zoroastrianism which I think is a very special religion. If God be the Creator of all things and beings, evil also is created by God; so, Zarathustra found a creator of good and a creator of evil; Ahuramazda and Ahriman. They worshipped Sun and we know all source of energy is the Sun. In India, the ancient people of the Vedic age believed thus, too. This formed part of the Rg-Veda, the earliest literature, in the hymn called Gayathri:
“Om, Tat-savitur-vareniam / Bhargo-devasia dheemahi / Dheeyoyonaprchodiyata”
(Oh, Sun is the most ideal, it gives us intelligence and light and all our source of wisdom.)
Iranians are a wonderful people who had great connections with the people of my land; both had a common source of language, the Avestan language of Persia and Sanskrit of India. The synonym Mithra for the Sun in Sanskrit language came from Avestan language. And as for the third part of your question, I have no contact with many Persian poets. But to me the word Persian itself forms poetry; Firdausi and Rumi.
You do bad deeds and hope to get back good
Though bad deserves bad only in return.
God is merciful and kind, but even so,
If you plant barley, wheat won’t grow
The great bard has sung, yes, Jalaluddin Rumi; he has also sung:
You could string a hundred endless days together,
My soul would find no comfort from this pain.
You laugh at my tale? You may be educated
But you haven't learned to love till you're insane.
Beauty is embodied into quatrains. Rumi wrote a lot; he was mystical and metaphysical.
My secrets are not alien from my plaintive notes,
Yet they are not manifest to the sensual eye and ear
writes Rumi in the initial part of the great classic, Masnavi. Poetry knows no bounds; none can hide any secret from it; me or you. Love takes turns unimaginable. The king saw a maiden and fell in love with her. Without asking her idea, he married her. She began to become weak and sick; all earthly physicians treated her and failed. The king who loved the maiden madly prayed for her health and God sent a heavenly physician. He diagnosed the disease: the girl was in love with a goldsmith. King ordered his men to find the lover. He was brought and wed to the princess. For months they led a happy and enviable life; then the goldsmith who was not faithful to the maiden, left her. The princess found that her true love is the king and appreciated his companionship for ever. I cannot conceive of greater poetry. Of course, there are modern Iranian poets and poetesses.
FH: Yes. She is one of the greatest poets of our country. I am glad you know her. It is a surprise for Iranian readers.
CP: I have a shallow idea about Forugh Farrokzad. If I remember right she suffered a lot in the marriage she was forced into at the age of sixteen; at nineteen, she was a divorced mother; gradually poetry became her spouse. She gradually was able to make herself part of the greater society; her grief was part of human grief.
FH: This story was what everybody believed but a new book was published of Forough’s unpublished letters to her husband that reveals interesting facts about her. According to those letters, she fell in love when she was 16, and in spite of her father’s disagreement, married her lover, a man who was 15 year older than her. Her restless soul was unable to bear a routine life and they separated. The rest of the story is exactly according to what you say.
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Farideh Hassan Zadeh( Mostafavi) - 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 The Last Night with Sylvia Plath: Essays on Poetry .She has extensively translated World literature into Persian.