In Kurdish, Armenian or American English -- Poetry Still Speaks to Us

I live in the high desert of Arizona at more than 2,000 meter altitude. In those mountains, the desert is different in flora and fauna. The cacti are of different species than those in the valley, and there are animals such as cougar and elk that cannot live except in remote areas of the wilderness.

There are also amazing sunsets around these mountains. Here is a typical one from my balcony:

… I have posted before about my romantic poetry inclination in various languages. The poet who influenced my teenage years is a romantic, Armenian “homme fatal” Mateos Zarifian  (https://vahezen.blogspot.com/2018/02/homens-bebados.html)  And yes, he died of tuberculosis making him the stereotype of a poet in the 19^th century. I still have his books, and from time to time I like to leaf through the pages.

It is as much about the poetry as memories of my youth, since many of the poems have a direct association to a period of my life, as I was soul searching by echoing my feelings in the empty spaces of other peoples’ souls.

One poem by Zarifian remains dear to me. Titled “Glorious Sundown” I have recited this poem in every continent and perhaps in more than 30 countries where I have lived in or visited. It is almost a prayer, a moment of Sufi simplicity.

Just in the photo above, Zarifian lives the moment of the  'the dying colours of the sky' and makes this wish:

            'that my sick soul would die

            exactly like this...

            A proud and powerful burst of flame

            Albeit soon to expire

            a majestic but calm conflagration

            A moment to live the infinite...

            Who could not wish a demise such as this

            one from which stars are born.'

I found this translation here: http://groong.usc.edu/tcc/tcc-20020603.html

Of course I recite this poem in Armenian which like any poem, gives sound to the words which even the best translations cannot.

Extreme feelings come from extreme experiences that affect our inner core. Deprivation, disease, hopeless love, war, and the new identity as a survivor of these extreme experiences are what all forms of art build upon.

Many of the above extreme experiences are also part of our world today. I do explore the means of learning about how the artistic expression in many countries and cultures are reflecting the difficulties of being a martyr of life as many poets have felt. While I read in many languages, my search is always for translations that make me peep into the expressive fortitude of contemporaneous artists.

As an example, here are powerful lines by a Kurdish poet, Kajal Ahmad from a poem titled “Were I a Martyr”. The brutal candor of the poet not only gives us a glimpse into a culture hardly known in the West, and a history of struggle and survival that continues today in Irak and the region as a Kurd.

She writes:

I want no flowers,
no epoch of union,
no dawn of disunion.
I want no flowers
for I am the loveliest flower.
I want no kisses
if for a true wrist
I must hold some knight –
no epoch of marriage,
no dawn of divorce,
no widow's fever.
I want no kisses
if, along with love, I become a martyr.
I want no tears
over the coffin or me, a corpse.

(Translation by Darya Ali and Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse)

These words are so real, powerful and universal, that if Kajal had written them in English she would have gotten many offers to make this poem into a song. A country music song, I assume.

Mateos Zarifian was romantic and expressed his pain and struggle with fate and destiny in a less brutal language than Kajal Ahmad. Many of us are somewhere in the middle, especially on a regular basis. Yes, we would look to the sunset and describe it such as the death of a day is seen as a blessing. Or we would burst like Kajal Ahmad and accept no solace from existing traditions. Or, we would learn how to make the trip of life. Not because it is fun, not because it is always pleasant or sad. We learn to make the trip because we are the trip. Because we cycle our days and nights to make that trip.

A trip we did not sign up for. A trip we do not know how it will end. But we know it will end.

Theodore Roethke, a 20^th century brilliant poet, has a few lines I like to often think about. In “The Waking” he writes

“I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.”

We have to go. On that rip we did not sign up for. Some of us learn as we go, others go by cursing the trip.

At the end, I like to think as a romantic. A positive romantic like Zarifian is in those lines:

            “My soul is a magnificent fire

            more luminous than the stars

            even the infinite universe

            feels confining to its rays.”

                  (Translation by Rouben Rostamian)

September 19, 2018

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2018