The Year in Review: Word To World by Sholeh Wolpé (November 5, 2012)

My mother and her sisters were born in Ishqabad, “the city
of love,” in Turkmenistan. She was educated in Cypress as a nurse, speaking
both Turkish and Greek. She then went to Tehran, met my father and married him.
This is how I came to be born in Iran. And what a country! A place where in
every home you almost always find a copy of poems of the revered Iranian poet,
Hafez; a country where even the illiterate can recite a line or two from the
poems of Rumi, Hafez, Saʿdī or any other classic poet to make his or her point
in a conversation. It’s a country where an amusing children’s game—and I played
this as a twelve-year-old with much gusto—is moshaereh, a game of poetry
and memory where using poems learned by heart, one child recites a line of a
poem, and the other child using the last letter of the poem must recite another
poem that begins with that letter. For example:

 Child one:  A
seasoned traveler on the road to love’s door

                   
Your blood leaves its mark on every step  [i] 

 
                                                                          (H..E.
Sayeh)

 Child two:  Prophets of words! You pen-wielding
idols.

                   
If your message was the Truth, why did it crash

                    like waves at the shores of degradation?  [ii]

                                                                              (Nader
Naderpour)

    Child one:  Not
for the sake of forests or for the sea

                    
but for a leaf, for a drop brighter than your eyes.  [iii]

                                                                               (Ahmad
Shamlou)

  … and so on.  There
was so much poetry stored in our little heads that we sometimes kept the game
going for as long as a half hour. 

 For Iranians, as for people living in many parts of the
world, poets occupy a lofty position and to them poetry is like bread, air, and
colors. It is in this way that poets wield power, and at the same time set
trembling the hearts of politicians, dictators, and even religious leaders. Indeed
from Damascus, to Beijing to Tehran in every
revolution or uprising, poets are among the first to be jailed. But the voice of the poet cannot be arrested, and that makes them
dangerous to oppressive regimes such as Iran and China.

 As an Iranian-American poet, I have always been a great
advocate of literature in translation. As a poet who writes in English and
saddles two languages and cultures, I have made it my duty to spend a portion
of my time translating the poetry of Iranian poets. Not having access to the
literature of a culture, movies like Argo and Not Without My Daughter,
and news reports from sources such as Fox network bring to focus a whole nation
through a single, and sometimes distorted, lens. I consider this kind of
one-sided distorted presentation of any story dangerous, unfair, and in
opposition to the peaceful direction towards which most human beings in this
world wish to move.

 In a country like Iran, a great
number of laws are passed just so that injustice can be carried out legally. In
many cases poets bearing witness to injustices and atrocities are guardians
against lies and half-truths perpetrated by the lawmakers and fanatic religious
leaders. These poets are harassed, jailed, or forced to flee. It is imperative
that their poems are translated into other languages, and that it is done so in a
caring manner:  as living poems translated
by poets who are fluent in both languages and cultures.  Carolyn Forché in her groundbreaking
anthology Against Forgetting writes,
“One of the things that I believe happens when poets bear witness to historical
events is that everyone they tell also becomes responsible for what they have
heard and what they now know.”[iv]  In my opinion, taking on this responsibility
is crucial to our progress towards a harmonious and tolerant world society
because to know the poetry of a nation means a closer look at its soul. Kenyan novelist and essayist, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, who has
always urged dialogue between nations through culture writes:

 Culture is a product of a people’s history. But it also
reflects that history and embodies a whole set of values by which a people view
themselves and their place in time and space. Cultural contact can therefore
play a great part in bringing about mutual understanding between peoples of
different nations. Instead of armaments and nuclear weapons, instead of
imposing one’s own version of democracy on tiny islands and continents through
Rapid or Low Deployment Forces, let people of the world dialogue together
through culture.[v]

 Presently, only 3 to 5 percent of books published in the
U.S. are translations. Yet, literature in translation is a tool necessary in
building bridges that connect people of different cultures and religious
persuasions.  When there is a bridge,
there will be foot traffic; and when we cross and engage with other cultures,
through poetry, novels, and plays, we are that much closer to understanding
them. That, I believe as a poet and a woman, is a good solid stride towards peace.

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