Saturday, March 27, 2021

“یادگیری زبان مثل هماغوشی با یک عاشق است”

 “یادگیری زبان مثل هماغوشی با یک عاشق است”

همراه با پانزده سالگی‌ام (۳-۵)

 دیدار پنجم: کنار چرخ و فلک در پاریس

 از مجموعه: همراه با پانزده سالگی‌ام


 

صدای ریزش آب آمد. قطره قطره. مثل باران. بعد مثل آبشار.

و خواب پانزده سالگی ام بیادم آمد.

“در خانه بزرگی بودم پر از درخت نارنج و حوض آبی زلال با کاشی های سفید. مردی که بلوز و شلوار پلنگی چریکی به تن داشت، شلوار خاک آلودش را تکاند. با کنجکاوی نگاهش کردم. بی اعتنا بود. با چشم هایی به رنگ سبز فندقی و موهایی بلوطی. می دانستم فرانسوی است.

سر وصورتش خاک آلود بود. و غرق در فکر. نمی دانستم به چه چیز فکر می کرد. و همین کنجکاوم کرده بود. لبخند زدم. و لبخند من او را کنجکاو کرد. و من اولین آذرخش را توی چشمهایش دیدم. خوشحال بودم که آن حس را پنهان نکرده بود. در این حس پنهان نشده حس کردم چقدر آزادم و چقدر بی هراسم. حس کردم که در فرهنگ این مرد، پنهان کردن احساسات جایی ندارد. و همین مرا به طرف او می کشاند.

بقیه در اینجا....

At age 80, Sylvia Byrne Pollack of Seattle will publish her first book of poetry

 At age 80, Sylvia Byrne Pollack of Seattle will publish her first book of poetry

“Part of the magic of poetry is that, when you write the words, you’re a writer,” Pollack continues. “And once you put them down, they’re not really yours anymore. The reader has to do the other half of the work.”

 Pollack says that’s part of why she’s so enamored by poetry.

“I suppose this is true with poetry particularly, because it’s much more compressed. You need to spend time with it and let the words soak in. I think many poets have had the experience of writing something, and only later do you realize that it has layers you didn’t even recognize. So that’s one of the things I love about poetry, is that it’s so multilayered.”

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Beautiful Old Age

Beautiful Old Age

 

It ought to be lovely to be old

to be full of the peace that comes of experience

and wrinkled ripe fulfilment.

 

The wrinkled smile of completeness that follows a life

lived undaunted and unsoured with accepted lies

they would ripen like apples, and be scented like pippins

in their old age.

 

Soothing, old people should be, like apples

when one is tired of love.

Fragrant like yellowing leaves, and dim with the soft

stillness and satisfaction of autumn.

 

And a girl should say:

It must be wonderful to live and grow old.

Look at my mother, how rich and still she is! -

 

And a young man should think: By Jove

my father has faced all weathers, but it's been a life!

 

David Herbert Lawrence

 

Figs

By D H Lawrence
 
The proper way to eat a fig, in society,
Is to split it in four, holding it by the stump,
And open it, so that it is a glittering, rosy, moist, honied, heavy-petalled four-petalled flower.

Then you throw away the skin
Which is just like a four-sepalled calyx,
After you have taken off the blossom with your lips.

But the vulgar way
Is just to put your mouth to the crack, and take out the flesh in one bite.

Every fruit has its secret.

The fig is a very secretive fruit.
As you see it standing growing, you feel at once it is symbolic:
And it seems male.
But when you come to know it better, you agree with the Romans, it is female.

The Italians vulgarly say, it stands for the female part; the fig-fruit:
The fissure, the yoni,
The wonderful moist conductivity towards the centre.

Involved,
Inturned,
The flowering all inward and womb-fibrilled;
And but one orifice.

The fig, the horse-shoe, the squash-blossom.
Symbols.

There was a flower that flowered inward, womb-ward;
Now there is a fruit like a ripe womb.

It was always a secret.
That’s how it should be, the female should always be secret.
 
Read the rest of it here...  
Picture from the GuardianMeaty, jammy and very Instagrammable: why figs are having a moment | Food |  The Guardian

The Atlanta Shootings Made Me Stop Gaslighting Myself

The Atlanta Shootings Made Me Stop Gaslighting Myself

 My unarticulated suspicions about Asian women being objectified, dehumanized targets have been confirmed.

"After 14 years in the US, I have learned to be vigilantly hyperaware of my skin. Racism most of the time rubs more like a rash than a gash. Sometimes it’s hard not to feel like I’m whining. I am, after all, ensconced in my own kind of privileged position. I can be read at the outset as a kind of bougie cosmopolitan academic—from Singapore, just exotic enough." 

Saturday, March 20, 2021

Elizabeth, A Short Story

 My short story "Elizabeth" published in The Bombay Review. Iranian Edition. 

The Iranian Edition (Vol I & II) | Foreword by Dr. Nilofar Shidmehr | Issues 39, 40 (2021)

Dr. Nilofar Shidmehr
Chief Editor and Curator, 
The Bombay Review’s Iranian Edition (Vol I & II)

May be an image of book and text

Thursday, March 18, 2021

Why This Wave of Anti-Asian Racism Feels Different

 Why This Wave of Anti-Asian Racism Feels Different

 The author Cathy Park Hong sees the recent upsurge in violence as a turning point for Asian Americans.

“The indignity of being Asian in this country has been underreported,” the poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong writes in Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning.

25 Legendary Literary Feuds, Ranked

1:  Norman Mailer vs. Gore Vidal

One of the true legends: the time Norman Mailer head-butted Gore Vidal backstage before appearing with him on the December 15th, 1971 episode of the Dick Cavett show (alongside journalist Jane Flanner). There’s no footage of the head-butt, but happily there is footage of the ensuing squabble, which you can watch here. As Dick Cavett himself described it: 

 

Read more here...


 

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone

I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone

- 1875-1926

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
    enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
    enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everday jug,
like my mother's face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

Monday, March 1, 2021

How to Live: Lessons from Montaigne

How to Live: Lessons from Montaigne

 Don’t worry about death, pay attention, read a lot, give up control, embrace imperfection.