Mahnaz Badihian Oba

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 blue 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. 

Amorous

Oh…
I loved you so
Like acacias in a moonlit night
In the hands of a caressing breeze

Oh…
I loved you so
Like the pouring of the rain
On the weeping willow
Timid, calm, amorous

Oh…
How desolate was your love
The moonlight to darkness
The breeze to tornado
The rain to thunder
And the sweet taste of love
To bitterness it turned

Oh…
See the silence of the tornado

Manoochehr Atashi the famous Iranian poet has died today.
The reason for his death was cardiac arrest after kidney surgery in Tehran,Iran.
He was 74 years old.

Poem is dream, but
to see, no need to sleep.
From room you go to balconey,
With your slippers on, but no response.
You arrive from the bridge in the backyard.
passing by the water fountain. and you
Open the door to an unknown guest,
who has not sent a message, but
you were expecting him.
He is here and you know he is 
where he is suppose to be.You go back
with him, shoulder to shoulder.
He seats in the balconey and drinks 
cups of tea, with basil and orange blossom.
He opens the mystery of world
In a cup as small as a word but
contains in it all oceans and thunder.

Translated from Farsi by: Mahnaz Badihian

Afghan poet dies after battering 

Nadia Anjoman had a cut to her head: 
A well-known Afghan poet and journalist has died from her injuries after being beaten, police say. 
Officers found the body of Nadia Anjuman, 25, at her home in the western city of Herat. 

A senior police officer said her husband had confessed to hitting her during a row. 

Nadia Anjoman, a student at Herat university, had a first book of poetry printed this year. She was popular in Afghanistan and neighbouring Iran. 

Police say the poet received a cut to her head. Blood she vomited may help determine the cause of death, the Pajhwok news agency reported. 

It said her family had refused to allow doctors to carry out a post mortem.

A poem by: Nadia Anjoman
Translated by: Mahnaz Badihian

No desire to open my mouth
What should I sing of…?
I, who is hated by life,
No difference to sing or not to sing.
Why should I talk of sweetness,
When I feel bitterness?
Oh, the oppressor’s fist
Knocked my mouth.
I have no companion in life
Who can I be sweet for?
No difference to speak, to laugh,
To die, to be.
Me and my strained solitude.
With sorrow and sadness.
I was borne for nothingness.
My mouth should be sealed.
Oh my heart, you know it is spring
And time to celebrate.
What should I do with a trapped wing,
Which does not let me fly?
I have been silent for too long, 
But I never forget the melody, 
Since every moment I whisper 
The songs from my heart, 
Reminding myself of
The day I will break the cage.
Fly from This solitude
And sing like a melancholic.
I am not a weak poplar tree
To be shaken By any wind.
I am an Afghan woman, 
And so it only makes sense to moan

From Zayandeh Rud to the Mississippi 
A voice from a road between East and West

Mahnaz Badihian (Oba)
cover design by Shirin Sadeghi

About the Book

From Zayandeh Rud to the Mississippi is a voice from East and West – a voice so Romantic, Simple and Philosophical. Half of the poems were originally written in Persian and translated by the poet herself into English, the other half were originally written in English. Her work is the path that makes the poetry connection of these two cultures easier to navigate.
About the Author

Mahnaz Badihian (Oba), poet, writer, and dentist, grew up in Iran with the poetry of mystic poets such as Rumi, Hafez and Khayam and has lived in the United States for over 25 years enjoying the poetry of great poets such as Langston Hughes, Edgar Allan Poe, T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop and many contemporary poets and writers. 

While living in Iowa for so many years she benefited from the literary atmosphere of Iowa City and the many workshop and classes of the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Oba believes that Marvin Bell, Iowa’s Poet Laureate, was of specific importance to her poetry. She started writing poetry and short stories at the age of fourteen.

She has published two volumes of poetry and one volume of poetry in translation. For over 10 years she has contributed to many literary magazines in the form of translations, poetry and short stories. She currently lives in San Francisco, dedicating all her time to Art and Literature. From Zayandeh Rud to the Mississippi is the first book from this poet in English.

Free Preview

Freedom

Oh Freedom I got my holiness
From you.
When you are with us,
The ocean is graceful
And the mountains are
Soft hearted…

Yesterday

I saw you yesterday
In the street of tomorrow
In an unknown road
Wandering.
Amazingly, your hair
Has lost color
Your shoulders, are droopy.
And your skin has lost luster.
Oh!
Where was I all these years?
I have lost your youth, and
I forgot the color of your eyes.
I have not read your poems and
The years escaped.

Yesterday, I saw you on the road of memories,
You were saying something
Something which was the story of my childhood
A song I knew
I saw you
In the street of my childhood,
In an endless road
In a road of my old age.
Do we know what we lost?

Iguazu (Brazil summer 1998)

I am a little fall,
With all my dreams running madly along.
I want to be like you,
Iguazu fall,
Rich, full, alive.

United States