Q&A with Mojdeh Bahar

 

 

 

Mojdeh Bahar is the editor and translator of the new book Silence and Lost Words, a collection of poetry by the Iranian poet Rouhangiz Karachi. Bahar's other books include Song of the Ground Jay. She is also a patent attorney and technology transfer professional, and she lives in the Washington, D.C., area.

 

Q: Why did you decide to translate these poems by Rouhangiz Karachi, and how did you choose the poems to include?

 

A: I had first learned about Dr. Karachi’s poetry when I translated some of her poems for my collection of contemporary Iranian women poets, Song of the Ground Jay.

 

Though the book was published in 2023, our exchanges, her kindness, generosity and her poems stayed with me. I wanted to learn more about her scholarly and creative work.

 

She sent me a selection of her poems and as I leafed through the book, I found myself translating the words as I read them. I knew that my work with her poems was not done and I wrote to get her permission to translate her poems.

 

Q: In the book’s preface, you write, “Karachi's ‘woman’ appears universal. Very few of her poems have a uniquely regional or ethnic color, allowing all readers to identify with her poems and be deeply affected by them.” Can you say more about that?

 

A: I believe that women across the globe– to differing degrees–deal with some common challenges: her body and her relationship to and control of it, the tension between her role in her family and her profession; the balance between fulfilling her dreams and those of her loved ones; time/lack of time to pursue personal desires; to name a few.

 

Dr. Karachi’s poetry captures a complex being trying to find her place in an unkind world. She is inquisitive, contemplative, perceptive, and imaginative. She is adaptable, patient, sorrowful, and nostalgic. She is full of contradictions: disheartened, hopeful, calm and tumultuous.

 

This poem illustrates some of these contradictions:

 

I have learned

To shed my dream softly

And to imprison

Love

In the midst of hurricanes

On a white sheet of paper

And to be a woman

With a room whose only window is imagination.

*******

 

Or her poem entitled My Report Card

 

My report card is black, black.

Scribbles in notebooks, jumbled lines, scattered here and there

from many…

                  many…

many years ago.

Circa 1973 when I sheltered escaped birds in my throat.

Ideas,,,dreams…joys…repetitions…deaths…and

poems that did not let me be, and silence…

Silence that turned everything into words.

 *********************

 

Or in this poem where she highlights a woman’s domestic responsibilities:

 

At home, I am totally consumed

By mandatory chores…

In the midst of the alley of habits

In the house numbered yesterday

In the uncertainty spread outside the window

And nights so heavily pregnant

Q: For those who are unfamiliar with Karachi’s work, can you tell us more about her?

 

A: She is a scholar, a poet, a mother and a wife. She has spent all of her academic life highlighting the contributions of women poets to Iran’s literary tradition. She says it best in her preface: “I have tried to depict an accurate image of women poets present on the margins of literary movements.”

 

She has published books on women and the poetry of the Constitutional Revolution, on four Iranian women poets, namely Ālamtāj Qāemmaqāmi (Zhāleh), Parvin Etessami, Forugh Farrokhzad, Heyrān Donboli, and on the history of women’s poetry from the beginning until the 15th century.

 

She also has published four collections of poetry: Ān Ruz-ha ke Shahrnaz Budam (The days I was Shahrnaz), as “romantic and sad”, Kābus-ha-ye Zan (Woman’s nightmares), Cheshm-ha-ye Lūch-e Zamin (Earth’s crossed eyes) fand Sokut-e In Suy-e Khat-ha-ye Dar Ham (Silence on this side of the jumbled lines).

 

In other words, she has created a seat at the table for women poets in the Iranian literary canon.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the collection?

 

A: While Hafez, Rumi, Khayyam are well known in the west, there are very few Iranian women poets whose work has been translated. I hope that as Dr. Karachi has found a place for women poets in Iranian literary canon, this translation will help Iranian women poets be celebrated in the western canon.

 

I hope that the readers will appreciate the impact of Karachi’s work on the later generation of women poets. I also hope that the poems will resonate with readers.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I think I am in play mode as I have not yet found my next project. In the meantime I am trying my hand at translating short poems from French to English and Spanish.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: That I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about Silence and Lost Words, Deborah. More importantly, I am grateful to you for creating and fostering this beautiful literary community!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Mojdeh Bahar.