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#6 2012
1 min read

Modern Persian lyric

Day by day, the censorship in Iran becomes stricter. The young Iranian poet Leili Galehdaran has therefore chosen to send her third collection, Sinior to the Swedish-located publisher Baran. If she had tried to get it printed in Iran, the book had, with necessity, been a totally different kind of poetry collection. Here we publish two texts representative of her style—modern poetry, influenced by classic Persian tradition.

Credits Text: Leili Galehdaran Translation from Swedish: Agneta Wirberg September 27 2012

The Knight

He bent over my lips

and spoke confidentially to the life growing in my womb:

You are the master of the house now

But during the season of Seville oranges

the house was grenades and a rain of bombs

Instead of him they handed me bubbles

that the shark’s cold snout could see

and an oil-stained manuscript

Bubbles that the shark’s cold snout

could see

and an oil-stained manuscript

was all I got for him,

for he who vanished without a trace

Oil burning in a wide circle

in the river Shatt al-Arab and in my heart

The Knight I sent to the front lines

came back torn to pieces

I live between Don Quixote and Hamlet now

who is calling out uncle to his father

And you brother

do not look at me

as if you see in me

a woman from Baghdad

………………………………………………………………………………………

Falcon

Wings, a Chador in the wind

In vain

again

So many inside me

Penguins

Ostriches

Partridges

And Chickens

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