{"id":304176,"date":"2016-04-14T16:38:39","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T16:38:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2016\/04\/14\/load-poems-like-guns-compiled-and-translated-by-farzana-marie-why-this-book-should-win\/"},"modified":"2018-05-04T14:47:34","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T14:47:34","slug":"load-poems-like-guns-compiled-and-translated-by-farzana-marie-why-this-book-should-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2016\/04\/14\/load-poems-like-guns-compiled-and-translated-by-farzana-marie-why-this-book-should-win\/","title":{"rendered":"“Load Poems Like Guns,” compiled and translated by Farzana Marie [Why This Book Should Win]"},"content":{"rendered":"

This entry in the Why This Book Should Win<\/a> series is by Deborah Smith, BTBA<\/span> judge, translator from the Korean, and founder of Tilted Axis Press.<\/a> We will be running two (or more!) of these posts every business day leading up to the announcement of the finalists.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Load Poems Like Guns: Women\u2019s Poetry from Herat, Afghanistan<\/em>,<\/a> edited and translated from the Persian by Farzana Marie (Afghanistan, Holy Cow! Press)<\/b><\/p>\n

This collection, subtitled \u201cWomen\u2019s Poetry from Herat Afghanistan,\u201d bears moving witness to the extraordinary impact both poetry and translation\u2014usually seen as minor, or marginal pursuits\u2014is able to have on both our intellectual and emotional lives. In her introduction, powerhouse translator Farzana Marie explains that \u201cpoetry holds an exceedingly revered place in the consciousness of the people of Afghanistan,\u201d its orality lending it endurance in a country where so much else has been repeatedly destroyed. Her tight editorial focus makes this anthology as effective as a single-poet collection; poems by eight young women from Herat, an ancient city near the border with Iran, all written post-2001 (in other words, post Taliban). The feeling is one of an intimate circle, especially as the latter seven are in some sense disciples of Nadia Anjuman, the poet whose work opens the collection and who was widely seen as the city\u2019s leading literary light until her untimely death, a victim of domestic violence.<\/p>\n

Two things about this book blew me away\u2014one was the strength of the writing itself, and another was the astonishing work of its translator, whose time in Afghanistan has been spent volunteering at orphanages, on active duty in the US Air Force, and as a scholar of Persian literature. Crucially, though, Farzana Marie is also a poet in her own right, and an extremely gifted one, with the literary sensibility needed to carry off the tricky task of making poetry which relies heavily on strict forms like the ghazal and end rhymes come alive in English, substituting internal and slant rhymes to retain the music of the original (these translations beg to be read aloud). Here, in one of Nadia Anjuman\u2019s most famous poems, rhythm, line-breaks and vowel sounds combine to produce an effect both heady and heavy, the long \u201cu\u201d at the end dulling the poem into a soporific stupor, similar to the way that earlier repeated \u201cfull\u201d hung alone like a weight or a stopper, bringing any hint of exuberance up short.<\/p>\n

Smoke-bloom<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m full of the feeling of emptiness,
\nfull.
\nAn abundant famine
\nboils me in my soul\u2019s fevered fields,
\nand this strange waterless boiling
\nstartles the image in my poem
\nto life.
\nI watch the new-living picture,
\na peerless rose
\nblush across the page!
\nBut barely has she first breathed
\nwhen streaks of smoke begin
\nto obscure her face and fumes
\nconsume her perfumed skin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sadly, I wasn\u2019t able to interview Farzana herself as she\u2019s currently recuperating from a stroke (and fundraising to pay for treatment), but her publisher Jim Perlman, at the wonderfully-named Holy Cow! Press, found time to answer a couple of questions.<\/p>\n

How did you come to publish the book?<\/b><\/p>\n

a.) We first became aware of Farzana Marie (her birth name is Felisa Hervey) in 2012 when we accepted her poem \u201cBe-long-ing\u201d for an anthology we were putting together called The Heart of All That Is: Reflections on Home<\/em>. In her bio notes, Farzana wrote that she was currently studying for a Ph.D. in Persian Literature at the University of Arizona. In the winter of 13\/14, wanting to escape the frozen tundra of northern Minnesota, I planned a two-week visit to Tucson where I have extended family. I decided to contact Farzana and set up a meeting. We met for lunch, and during our conversation, she mentioned that she\u2019d translated a collection of contemporary poetry by Afghan women and was looking for a publisher. Soon after returning to Minnesota, I received a copy of that same manuscript. Although Holy Cow! are known primarily for writing by midwest regional American authors, I felt that Load Poems was a powerfully unique and historically important book. So, we went for it.<\/p>\n

How does it feel to be longlisted?<\/b><\/p>\n

b.) We\u2019re overjoyed that Load Poems<\/em> has been selected for the BTBA<\/span>\u2014the nomination confirms for us the wisdom of taking this bold step in publishing Farzana\u2019s ground breaking collection, and it will definitely encourage us to seek out other translations to add to our list.<\/p>\n

For those who are interested, here\u2019s a clip from the reading tour for this collection:<\/em><\/p>\n