![]() ![]() The foreword to the collection, written by Mahnaz Parakand, a member of the centre of human rights defenders and one of the four lawyers of the Yaran, sets these poems in context. This is a bit longer than my usual blog but I hope you will be able to read it all and more importantly want to read Sabet’s poetry. It is challenging in the parameters of what should be a short a blog/article to convey the full power and complexity of the spiritual and emotional journey Sabet’s poems will take the reader on, whilst at the same time considering their artistry, spiritual basis, and technique, but my main goal is to give the potential reader motivation to uncage the voice of Mahvash Sabet. ![]() Nakhjavani prefers to call them adaptations rather than translations due to the immense difficulty of translating poetry from other languages with absolute accuracy especially with the extra elements of metre and rhyme to combine with meaning and the cultural and spiritual dimensions of language. Mahvash Sabet’s Prison Poems (George Ronald Press, 2013) have been brought to the English speaking world in delicate and skilful adaptations by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani she was assisted in this work by both her father and her mother. ![]() ‘We shout as loudly as we can but our voices too are caged/and day after day death is denied as well as aid./No one listens, no one hears this wingless bird.’ (Mahvash Sabet – ‘The Friends’) ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |