Read few poems from the book of”From Zayandeh Rud To The Mississippi” and book reviews by: Marvin Bell(American poet)- Ehsan YarShater-Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)- and by Jennifer Langer
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Reviewer: Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) – See all my reviews
The verse of poet, writer and dentist Mahnaz Badihian (Oba) reflects the mystic poets of her Iranian childhood and is hallmarked by romantic, simple and philosophical
qualities that resonate in the mind and heart of the reader. From Zayandeh Rud to The Mississippi: A Voice From A Road Between East And West is her debut anthology and showcases her experience and expertise in English. Modern Woman: I am a restless woman./A woman with strong shoulders,/That carries life./With iron feet,/That walk through fire every second./I am a woman with a wounded voice,/That bleeds inside, every day./I am a modern woman,/A woman of an age of ex, money, perfumes./I keep the pain in me, I paint the face for you!/I am a restless woman,/A woman of the modern age.
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From Zayandeh Rud to the Mississippi by Mahnaz Badihian (OBA)
Reviewed by Jennifer Langer
This is a collection of poetry by Iranian born Mahnaz Badihian who has lived in the US for twenty-five years. Half the poems are translated from Persian and half written in English.
The subtitle of the collection is ‘A Voice form a Road between East and West’ and her work aims to mediate a space between the two cultures. However, this collection represents the emotional difficulty and struggle of negotiating the loss of home regardless of the length of time spent in the country of exile. There is a sense of loneliness in an alien American environment. Identity is continually interrogated – she asks ‘Where am I from?’ and dreams are significant as they reveal her repressed consciousness, be it of the lbue of the Caspian Sea or of the mirror in Iran waiting for her return. She yearns for the sensory signifiers of her homeland – tapes of Shamloo reading, a bag of sabzi , the sound of the Copper Bazaar, her grandfather’s pomegranate garden, because although she persuades herself that her life is filled with harmony, nevertheless ‘something is missing’ which leads her to perceive herself as a prisoner of memory. In the poem ‘Mirror’, despite breaking the mirrors of the present, the narrator continues to see past ‘unshattered faces in shattered dreams’ with the mirror also being an emblem of temporality and the irretrievability of time marked by ‘the footsteps of moments’. Finally, the presence of her poetic muse relieves the suffering of loneliness and the pain of memory and she experiences elation.
The poetry also focuses on unrequited love with some of the love poems deploying traditional Persian poetic metaphors including, ‘wine’, ‘flame’ and ‘moonlight’ and in fact Badihian grew up with the mystic poetry of Rumi, Hafez, and Khayam. Sufism, the Islamic/Persian form of mysticism, demanded the most intense forms of introspection and this is what Badihian does in her poetry.
However, examining of the self is problematic in a culture that idealises feminine silence and restraint and interestingly the poetry is written in the safer space of exile.
Jennifer Langer is the founding director of Exiled Writers Ink and editor of The Bend in the Road: Refugees Writing, Crossing the Border: Voices of Refugee and Exiled Women Writers and The Silver Throat of the Moon: Writing in Exile. She is completing an MA in Cultural Memory.
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Your poems are mostly short, but they are packing a great deal of well-expressed sentiments. You are able to make a literary point, capture an aesthetic moment and express fleeting emotions with ease and elegance. I hope you will continue writing poetry.
With best wishes,
Sincerely,
Ehsan Yarshater
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“I adore your book of poetry. Mahnaz, you have the heart and soul of a poet.!”
Marvin Bell
Zayandeh rud
Where am I from?
That my dress smells
Like the tarragon from my
Father’s garden,
And my cheeks, red
As the flower of a
Pomegranate tree.
Where am I from?
That my hands are the
Stem of a delicate tomato plant,
And the taste in my mouth
Is a taste of pussywillows
In my mother’s tea.
Where am I from?
That all my dreams
Are blue, the same
Color as the Caspian Sea
Where am I from?
That in spring, the
Apple tree buds
In me.
You know, you know
I am from that proud
River,
Zayandeh Rud
From the tall mountain,
Alborz.
From the land that
Reaches to Zoroaster:
The first poet on earth.
Kiss
My dear when you pour on me
Your kisses,
Watch out!
You will drown in my tears!!
Permission
You are my destiny
When
my dreams are
after you, and
my hands are
dreaming of you.
Let me love you.
Love you
between
Water and fire,
Between
desert and ocean,
Between
trust and uncertainty.
My hands are around
your waist,
when I wake up.
And my fingers are
caught onto
curls of your hair.
There is no way to escape
From this flame of dreams
Let me love you,
and travel
into the circuit of
your thoughts
Let the wave of my
hands
have a journey
in your skin and
make a thunder.
Oh, you:
My land in spring
My sun in a time of rise
My tree in a time of
blooming
and awakening
Let me love you.
My story
Time was short, short
The distance was far…
I wanted to tell you
How I become sad
How I laugh
The time was short…
And my story is untold.
So you know
