Let it be:
everything in our home is now yours
except whoever is outside the front door
agreed?
She agreed and a smile crept across her lips.
I realised:
the place where a kissing lip is in short supply
would be like a rooftop-edge
working favourably only for Venus.
That night the smoke’s share
from my lips given to the cigarette
were nothing other than swirls.
My hands on my head were thinking,
reminiscing about that shell-hit day
and the companions
who have left me behind.
The frontiers continued
as long as there was any chance of martyrdom
During offences, they flocked in
like stock doves.
A battalion of commanders and jihaddies
and the rest, martyrs.
After the battlefield sacrifices, the armed militias
were promoted as army officers.
The pilgrims of Karbela left the path
and became nouveau riche Tehranis.
Whether you like it or not
they were the squatters like the cuckoo
snatching their rich pickings
from abandoned dwellings.
Wherever there is a mirror
we are carried away by it for too long.
While our enemies are inside the house
we are outside the door.
We clenched and raised our fists
on lowering them, our backs gave in.
Down with…we said and then distanced ourselves
from the stance.
They closed the roads
we ran away through hills and valleys

The mountain took off the snow-cap
yet did not get wet.
Time passed through a winter episode
yet our conditions did not improve.
Pitfalls and traps did not open our eyes
we did not put on our shoes
stepping onto a new path.
We didn’t set foot outdoors braving the elements
nor did we dare to set fire
to the shores of this wasteland.

The wave knew that it was trapped
in the margin of the sea.
The wave knew
it could not be content on the shore.
The wave became `wavy` (1)
and died on the shore.

Plunging deep into the sea
naturally carries the danger of being drowned.
When you lose a tight rein on a task
a serpent may nest in your sleeves.

For such a long time, we chanted:
“No West. No East”
“Long Live War…”
“Down With…” (whoever is other than us)
“Down With material life”.
(we deserve what we are worthy of).

Given the free rein to …whatever
I doubt if common sense will prevail.
This door, closed to me, is the only door open
I have reached a state of existence in which
I am non-existent
Although I’ve spread everywhere
I am just a drop
fallen in my own vein.
It is said: once upon a time
There was no one even God.
Under this azure dome
there were only
my wife and my dove;
had it flown away
would have landed
on the neighbour’s rooftop
out there.
Here I am far away from myself
and my wife, from both.
Around my head
except me
my dove
sheltering all the rooftops of the world
It was not on
going for a census in a city where
from its girls
not even one
was to be mine.

It was not justifiable!
Ali and his rival Amroaas were both at the battlefield
I am Amroaas the sweetheart of all Tehran’s girls
My embrace is still a wise hotel in which
one night stands are free of charge

Do travel:
There is a room in this house
that has a single bed
But other rooms have several.
I am not a lover who has fought
with: with those I have slept
and having said nothing
I carry on my solitude for the Earth
who is said to be a woman
I have kept my beauty firmly intact in the mirror
hoping to come in slowly little by little
I have buried within myself the beloved venerable lady
and my honourable soldier behind the front line:

Hello!
hello!
this is Ali!
hello!
alo!
:::boom:::!

Alo, alo! was heard aloud from different wires
and the devil ran at the tip of my pen
then: in the sounds from the depth of the alley
tanks were passing that night
The cars, passengerless, were going solo

I am proceeding aimlessly!
I’ve left loose- half way through-
the task of buttoning up
loneliness is the state I am in
I am rehearsing my voice
whispering for a woman
who is about to ring:

alo!
hello!
Greetings!

I give her a greeting and she doesn’t wave a hand
I am a lover but as far as the eye can see
there are perverts.

Many memories did not travel with me.
…My wife…?
I washed my hands of my wife
my mother also passed away
And what remains at hand
is me yet in existence
swollen like Sundays.
For one as out-stormed as I
wings are indeed the bloodline
They have given me a small wing.
I cannot become
unsatisfied – I am.
I know perfectly by heart what needs to be done
I retuned to finalise my fear
You finish it off
a combatant
who remained fragmented
among the mortar’s shell fragments.
Your eyes in the photograph
we had taken at the river embankment
- -fighting against the flow
were shown sunk.
Whenever I look at these pictures
I become the contrary
I mean it
And I hate the woman
whose lips whispered at ease into my ears:

:::kiss::: I love you so much.

Hey `Wavy`
I am left floating in my own insane eyes
Fearing the gradually growing city
the rural land is fleeing
For survival, `Wavy` took refuge behind a mountain
like the moon
Nobody was with me
nobody was there to accompany me
One was with him
though remote
She became a whore in an alley upon whose lips
laughter was murdered
she went missing…eventually.

I am going,
going to buy a spouse for my empty bed

Me! An Armenian wouldn’t give a daughter
To someone outside my clan `Shamlou`(2)
one who may inflict suffering on my poor child

Close to a shell thrust from its cartridge
I was blown out of the window
Next to a riverside akin to a fish:
having been brought by a wave
to the river Karoon’s embankment,
I have tried to re-vitalise myself
I washed the woman off
as a hand might scrub the oily dirt off the body
The wave was far away, neither coming nor going
and the skeletons away from the harbour
were shouting that I am now a `Wavy`.
They are yelling that I am a lunatic
I am not denying that
I guess I am!
I have no other choice
but to stroll in the middle of myself like a street
It is not the night
No-one, no no-one!
Nobody there.

Taller than him
his song was climbing the wall
fell over the other side
the north of this map
he landed there-plop!
Beyond the gate of his lips
the way to the city `Wailing`(3)
separating from the road `Fooman` - `Rasht`
passing by weeping

Go on! go on! leave me
what would you do though with my groaning
what would you do with my torn apart heart
Assuming you could tear apart
the photographs and letters
what would you do with the trails
of my kisses on your cheek (4)

Would you mind lowering the volume sir…!

The driver reversed away
from the black and white photograph
When he returned from the war
He found it coloured
How hard and fast he ran
to escape his memories
to no avail!
He prised the car off the road’s body
Out of the alley
Into the twisting bends of the arms
And let it freewheel aimlessly.

My Lord what is wrong with me
like people, my words are all short
I am fretting
my fingers were hurtled into the battlefield
I am in a hurry
I don’t know why…
It was my wrong doing
I fingered the sky….for no reason
Despite so many stars out there
None of them belong to me.
And life is still going on in spite of
the chemical pollution.
For what?
that may serve me, the “Wavy”, right
I had a good voice…but I didn’t sing
I was full of spiritual beliefs
but I no longer have such faith.
Wandering about
I am searching to find myself.
has anybody seen traces of it?
The earth is still waiting for me
to fill in the empty ditch
left from the war.
How could I open the windows
which are gone with the wind?
The street has forgotten the night
up to the last lamp-post.
People look at my empty folded trouser leg
as if from a watchtower
scrutinising my abnormality.

Alo!
dove!
alo!
Go forward on seventy knots
Alo!
are you asleep?
“Trench”!

“We have proper and smart trenches
We are carrying guns on our shoulders
Our hearts are full of love for our countrymen
In every shell, we have a cartridge…” (5)

What we were talking about?
Got it, then
I was hit by a bullet
and everyone else was affected
you also lost all your wind
Alas have you forgotten- saying with sincerity-
Could you remember that wailing and darkness
which filled the streets
You remember how the foreigners let their bombs loose
on our women and children
I was a toddler then- can you understand!?
I abandoned Leila, the neighbour’s daughter
whom I fancied, to the fates
and left for the warfront swiftly.
At the front, I had a broad shoulder to take on difficulties
I had no inclination to go after my business
I had no desire for stories and buffooneries
At the forefront on the attacking line
you could easily distinguish wantons
turned now to patriots
Do you follow me?
do you understand?
what now?
I was the same age as you
when, with other volunteers I stepped forward,
going through a mine field.
Knocked down by an explosion, I lost consciousness.
What happened to you?
that your interpretation of the events
is so at odds with the obvious?
What rubbish are you talking about?
Literature! Ha-ha! Isn’t it all craziness?

I am a poem to be published
one within which, it is forbidden
to be masculine
Help evict that unacceptable man from me quickly!

Fanatic gangsters give anyone challenging their views
a hard blow on the face
abrupt and so severe
that one would still be frightened
of its impact the next day.
Like a donkey fainting on a hilltop
one had fallen into a deep sleep:::snore:::
dreaming like a mule
No snout was muzzled except for grazing.
I guess it’s better I stand by her
in order to not to spoil any chance
of being together in this house;
vast terrains.
If I wish to shout at her
the Turks will intercept my voice
from the satellites…excuse me, hold the line! Let me whisper it into your ears:
one night as soon as I arrived
she rolled off my sleep
and was devoured in another’s bed
the sun was shining behind a widow in Iraq, quite late!

I am far away!
with no option but to draw out my frightened car
and skid a break upon someone’s lips
thus to carry my cross from the mine field
I have travelled youth
And my fag end was stumped
by my passenger’s foot
why should I not hurry?
I am not a fool:
counting the years lost at war
not one complete bullet reached me from its tanks
Why should I not restrain?
Behind the gate of my mouth
the word `I love you` has gone rotten
Last night, I was sleepwalking on the lips of a nun
Tonight, I severed a few pieces of India from the map
Tomorrow what will be on the cards…I don’t I know
There might be a bullet in this plot
aiming at a heart that is no longer worth it
In my hand who has played open his card?
Is it me?
Don’t look at my verses
those disconnectedly are speaking nonsense
The sketches of my poems are dragged out of pain…

________________________________________
1- PTSD or “Shell-shocked” soldiers-”Wavy” is a Persian slang for a soldier suffering from this condition.
2- A name of an Armenian clan but also the name of a contemporary Persian poet.
3- The city is called “Shivan” which means “Wailing” in Persian
4- This is part of a folkloric song which the protagonist is listening on the radio while taxi driving.
5- This is a popular song used by the state to mobilise the masses for the frontline during the Iran – Iraq war.
6- Each character’s distinctive way of speaking consists of the following:
a- their words
b- the shape of their sentences
c- the sounds of their words
d- the colour of their discourses
The following colours represent different characters appearing throughout the poem:

Black = The protagonist
Sea Green = The narrator
Red = The supreme leader Khomeini talking
Blue = A religious moron speaking
Bright Green = Wireless contact
Yellow = A woman chatting on the phone
Lavender = A woman lover
Turquoise = An Armenian father
Lime = A folkloric song from northern Iran
Gold = A passenger
Gray = A commander giving order via wireless
Plum = A mobilisation song
Brown = Another ex-veteran talking to the protagonist.

Poetry and Conscience was the name of an event which took placed at the Headquarters of Amnesty International in London on 23rd September 2008.
Graham Henderson on behalf of Poet in the City and English PEN welcomed the audience and introduced the purposes of the event. Then James Savage spoke about the action card on behalf of Amnesty International. He finally asked Helena Kennedy QC to chair the event.
Helena first explained her own interests in Poetry And Conscience and then in Paying tribute to the PEN ‘empty chair’, she read three poems by writers
from Another Sky.
After the prelude, three guest poets read from their own works.
Sifundo (originally from Zimbabwe), (Abol Froushan originally from Iran) and Moniza Alvi (originally from Pakistan) took centre-stage and read a few of their own poems respectively.
In the second part after the break, a short panelled discussion and Q&A sequence was held.
Four premeditated questions were the topic areas to which the poets raised their views in turn.

 
1- What does the word conscience mean? Is poetry to appeal to the conscience and speak of, for instance, human rights abuses?

 
2- If poetry is often about taking on voices in order to convey a larger truth, is it then through artifice that we reflect best on reality?

3- Is art always siding with what is right? What is the relationship of poetry and the political conscience?

4- Is there a place for what we might call ‘domestic poetry’ or ‘poetry of the everyday’?
 

Abol Froushan writes poetry in English and in addition has translated from Persian to English of Ali Abdolrezaei’s works.
A selection of Abol’s poems titled “A Language against Language” was published early this year in London. At the same time, a collection of poems translated by him into English of Abdolrezari’s poetry under the title “In Riskdom where I lived” went to print by the Exiled Writers Ink.
For Abol, the act of poetry is, physically, a state of concentration of the mind so to maintain both a vision in its integrity and a formative design for the transformation of the vision into words. In his state of mental temperament, words in the process of poetic composition appear as isolated objective ‘things’ with definitive sounding impacts. To describe his ‘pure poetry’ vision, there is one qualification to make; that is to say, his vision is expressed mainly by a musical equivalence in the words. The new expressive moment in its particular significance forms itself in the meaning of the whole, which in the new moment is not inferred but newly born. Thus, reality at every point is drawn up from the unknown.
His successfully adopted harmonic style is well reflected in the poems published under the title “A Language against Language”. In this collection, a series of themes with specific illustrations is woven into a web of continuous phonetic orchestration.
Abol Froushan’s conception of musical poetry is such that it makes the narrative text meaningful through music of heightened allusion.
Let us now read one of the poems he cited in the event.
 

There is no death in a death

The place is the smell, the mystery of the first woman
Morning coffee opening the window
The father hanging the sea on the wall.

Anyone stricken by love calls me
So my enemies’ butterflies can increase.
Any girl who touches her breasts so two birds can scar my heart
Will shrink away.
…
I love love when love recedes
I love the white lilly
When it withers in my hand and grows in my song - Wait for me,
my song.
 

***

Ali Abdolrezaei was born in northern Iran in 1969. Aside from being a poet, he is also trained as a mechanical engineer. In 2003, he had to flee Iran due to the serious scrutiny and censorship of his work. He is now living in London. He has published 12-books of poetry and has one forthcoming. The most authoritative collection of Ali Abdolrezaei’s poetry is I Live in Riskdom published on internet in Persian language outside Iran in 2007. His poetry has exercised a decisive influence on post-Revolutionary Iranian literature. This 12th poetry book brings together a fascinating selection of themes by one of Iran’s most talented and extraordinary poets. It focuses on the feelings of anxiety, isolation and the sense of loss that Iranian Diaspora, and artists in particular, have been experiencing in the last 30 years. Abdolrezaei’s poetry shows that the contemporary art of Iran has been hugely influenced by the traumatic historic events of the last three decades and that they have affected millions of Iranians in one-way or another.
In the process of the session, Abol Froushan cited five poems of Ali Abdolrezaei of which the following one constituted the prominent theme of the panel discussion.
 

This is my mum Isn’t she beautiful?!
This my brother and this my father!
If only he knew how I am door to door Poor thing!
This one is Sara the youngest this smiley face also…can’t remember the name!

Exile, exile what havoc it’s played on my memory
She’s my eldest sister
She used to pass out laughing
when shooting pictures

I’m at a loss how these pictures taken from the lip of smiles
are movie of eyes that have cried
anyway never mind!
but how mixed up I am
Poor thing! my peasant mum!
If freedom ever visits Iran
you’ll become my father’s new bride
and after breakfast my sister
with frankincense will smudge round my head
to dispel the bad eye
on my having a woman in the night most
and my mum while boasting
will be throwing confetti and ululating in the paddy at the bottom of the garden
so her son may eye up the sap of this lass and be turned on!
I’m turned on!
Now that we’re enthralled shoulder to shoulder in the hall of this house
why not make believe we’re enfolded in the joy of reeves? Let go!

***

Moniza Alvi was born in Pakistan (February 2, 1954) to an English mother and a Pakistani father. She moved to England at an early age (from which point, as she comments in her fourth collection, Souls, she was “translated into an English girl”).
Alvi’s voice has achieved a relaxed naturalness, a fluidity which allows her to present poetry as though it were easy. She is a skilled storyteller, recounting the extraordinary in the voice of the everyday language. Moniza Alvi takes a more autobiographical approach to racial conflict and the split between the East and the West.
She is concerned with both emotional and cultural splits. Surreal reminiscences of homeland and the exploration of personal fragility constitute two pillars upon which her poetry is based.
Moniza Alvi has written six poetry collections.
Moniza’s latest collection “Europa” deals with issues of trauma and/or post-traumatic stress disorder e.g. enforced exile, alienation, rape and ‘honour killing’. The centrepiece in this collection is a re-imagining of the story of the rape of Europa by Jupiter as a bull. Let’s finish off with one of Moniza Alvi’s
Poems called “Would I Like to Be a Dot in a Painting by Miro”:
 

Barely distinguishable from other dots,
it’s true, but quite uniquely placed.
And from my dark centre

I’d survey the beauty of the linescape
and wonder — would it be worthwhile
to roll myself towards the lemon stripe,

Centrally poised, and push my curves
against its edge, to give myself
a little attention?

But it’s fine where I am.
I’ll never make out what’s going on
around me, and that’s the joy of it.

The fact that I’m not a perfect circle
makes me more interesting in this world.
People will stare forever –

Even the most unemotional get excited.
So here I am, on the edge of animation,
a dream, a dance, a fantastic construction,

A child’s adventure.
And nothing in this tawny sky
can get too close, or move too far away.

 *******

Mansor Pooyan  

Before advancing my critique of the poem Terror, I would advise the reader to read the poem itself first. This allows a comprehensive point of reference to be maintained against multi-dimensional remarks I make throughout the assessment. So let’s read the poem Terror here first:

From far away                        you bury your father

wipe your mother’s tears        from far away

in a café where you can ambush loneliness

you chat with a weeping house

video call from afar

Mother            three steps above everything like a moon                 is up there

kissing Mahsa (moonface)

goes after Mahtab (moonlight)

and yet her demeanour which carries a headache

is the execution of my placeholder

in the the arms of a few women

In a banned house

they’re all coming

like I have left

            I’m in deep sorrow

this sorrow of my words

in Langrude

at the foot of a bridge that’s more a stallion than running

                        they killed my father

they killed my father

                        but

                        only in Langrude

otherwise each year someone’s

                        leaving, breaking away

Friday is a bleak house that was massacred

and the family, the Iran which was executed at home

since we chanced out of the loins of Eve

and Adam became man’s exclusive pa

we put Jesus in the Church

so the hero so hidden in women’s loins

            would manifest instantly

to send death

            that’s ahead of the horse

                        far from the house

At the foot of the bridge that so lacks a father

            as Jesus son of Mary

I was so walking in myself

            as to put my town to shame

Not so shamelessly as Juda

to unleash wolves to kill the father

I should keep quiet

            so the rabid dog won’t wake

and bark and bark in the house

and the blood letter lurking in female loins

won’t get the chance

            to cut a wound in the morning

now that the horse is the principle

and death        the bailiff

with the sorry state of my eyes

that make a small sea for the frog to swim

what do I do if I don’t risk

no longer will few extra throats harbour such a lump that makes a necklace to my throat

death

            is sat squatting in my sorrow

the knife can no longer help my life

the bottle is so full

            that any longer has no wine

and the wound that has a depth of ruin

is so effective

that blood is random walking through my drunken veins

the one who was my pa

the big baba

the  friend on road

the one seen

            jamming with me

I was left alone

Am alone

            by my J’s

am alone

            by my J’s

more alone

            by my J’s

                        more than ever

This alley is more for the job than a knife

            this house from the arm

this pain

            will last another man

this man

            will rise in another place

the road’s father is from either side

and death        that is life’s destination

                        is the services café along the way

It has a lantern

            but it’s dark

has bitter tea   in narrow waisted cup

but sweet

like a lament spilling off the call of lovers

A Ashura band of chest-beaters         this side of the way

singing            oh my Hosein             oh my Hosein

A band of chest beaters                      that side of the alley

Oh my standard bearer’s stature        where art thou?

Like a nation bequeathed of Imam Hosein

            a home town is left behind

from a little house

at the end of a road

in a remote place left behind

A nation that put to fire its country like a match

slayed the bedstead

and morphed the spouse to a sea

Long live the wind that was but late

Long live the desert that has no sea

and mother

       mother

    a mother who can no longer

            pin her lips onto my cheeks

The road has a journey on either side

and me            a half torn hyman       a half torn hymn of Sohrab on the wedding night

I haven’t shed the father’s blood to come true

I’m whiling death’s remit

like a shoe with laces  untied

I’m such a lout

that could for the killer

who has a stocky stature

turn my thumb to a spade

you say Ouch!

And be careful

god is great     hallelujah

father is not dead  hallelujah

and love

like a recipe with water’s flesh           against the mince with the face of a cow      is all ready

Mary is not anti magdalin

Leila is not anti love

 and La Elaha Ella Love

            is a hailing

                        that has a son from tomorrow’s

the alley in each house is the father

and for pa

            a nurse

            that is privately

and a rice paddy         which can’t be sold without my signature

I am heir to your wound father

what have I to do with your garden

give your assets to your brother

and your son in law who sleeps with the most sisterly god

            enjoying his time

I’m like a brigade who’s lost a country

my base is lost, no longer to be found

I’m gone like a sunrise after sunset mother

at least sweep the clouds off the mountain of Karbala^[1]

plow the snow weighing down on my roof

don’t cry

just your being there for me to look into your eyes

is still more than enough

the fact that you kept saying God is Great aloud as I misbehaved while you were praying and now that God is Great keeps bugging your life

God is Great

Cradled in the sunset going down the slope of Thursday

Halva again

why don’t you donate the dates again?

Oh my lord

The half finished painting of my wedding night

and I’m such a lout

that cannot help being a fathered child

I’ve even forced my Sunday to go to church

to sit next to Marge somewhere along the isle

and constantly

to wink at Mahsa who is a female Jesus

I’m no longer the person that I was

I have no time

and when ever I have no time is the (right) time

I am no longer a man  who is no longer like Adam

if you are

just say Ouch!

*******

As this poem is a fairly long one, it would seem logical to start with the whole of the opening stanza looking for clues of a central opposition, which should help to come to grips with the main subject matter of the poem.
In the first stanza of The Terror, Ali Abdolrezaei describes how he feels and then goes on to mention the loss of his father. A sense of pain is set against his absenteeism to tackle family issues back home. Thus a bewildering sense of space via a dichotomy of here and there is created. This idea of a distant place is important to Ali. This poem is filled with glimpses, with echoes of large areas of experience tantalizingly out of reach.
Terror’s approach is strong in its evocations of the fragility of life, exploring birth, death and memories.
In this regard, poetry is used as a way of ordering and understanding traumatic experiences. Can readers really engage with poetry which is deeply rooted in the personal? Can this kind of poetry have lasting value or will it be too connected to particular incidents and historical frameworks?
War poetry provides counter argument to this debate in the sense that experiences of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) might have incredible resonance for readers who were not alive or having had witnessed the socio-historical conflicts of the same nature.

From far away
you bury your father
wipe your mother’s tears from far away

Oddly the poem inadvertently draws attention to the sort of things that really are happening in today’s Iran. The poem sheds light on a state of siege governed by a form of terror controlling private and public life in Iran. The poem endeavors to demonstrate the general feeling of insecurity at all levels of society under Islamic Holy terror.

A nation that put to fire its country like a match
slayed the bedstead
and morphed the spouse to a sea
Long live the wind that was but late
Long live the desert that has no sea

Terror is a poem that reflects nihilistic views as well as conspiratorial outlooks. Begun in the wake of a family tragedy, the poem is imbued with the disillusionment of Iranian intelligentsia with the Revolution of 1979. No solution is provided as the poem ends in confusion. Ali seems to provide a kind of epigrammatic solution to thematic issues in the poem.

I’m no longer the person that I was
I have no time
and when ever I have no time is the right time
I am no longer a man who is no longer like Adam
if you are
just say Ouch!

The second section takes a more autobiographical approach to social conflict and the split between people and the regime in Iran. But a continuation of a sequence from his earlier exploration of personal fragility provides a linking thread. This childlike quality of past reminiscences is sustained throughout the poem.

and mother
mother
a mother who can no longer
pin her lips onto my cheeks

At the foot of the bridge that so lacks a father
as Jesus son of Mary
I was so walking in myself
as to put my town to shame
Not so shamelessly as Juda
to unleash wolves to kill the father
I should keep quiet
so the rabid dog won’t wake
and bark and bark in the house
and the blood letter lurking in female loins
won’t get the chance
to cut a wound in the morning
 

At this point of the lengthy monologue, the protagonist is justifying his low-key profile to avoid confrontations with unscrupulous figures who will stop at nothing to advance their egoistic gains. He suspects the death of his father at the foot of the bridge in Langrude was part of a greater conspiracy like in Judah’s story.
The narrator assumes it is wise enough to keep quiet in order to defuse the aggression of “the rabid dog” in his hometown from committing further atrocities. They trawl the population for soft prey and at the same time boasting about their religiosity.
One of the most remarkable aspects of the poem is the sense of humour with which the poet tackles his problems, addressing major issues such as Islamic paternalism, loss of identity and isolation.

like a shoe with laces untied
I’m such a lout
that could for the killer
who has a stocky stature
turn my thumb to a spade
you say Ouch!
And be careful
god is great hallelujah
father is not dead hallelujah
and love
like a recipe with water’s flesh against the mince with the face of a cow is all ready
 

In the third section, religious/ mythical allusions are used to portray a sense of self-estrangement. One needs to be aware that the three sections, though tapped into very fertile ground, are intertwined and fragments of each section are repeatedly scattered throughout the poem.
At points such as the above, the idea of a religious tribute seems almost a mockery. The poem alludes to religious folktales as if the situation is so unprecedented that the old forms can’t cope with it.

Mary is not anti Magdalin
Leila is not anti love
and La Elaha Ella Love
is a hailing
that has a son from tomorrow’s
 

It is an allegorical poem: telling one story while seeming to tell another. Satirical at times, but prominently based on a strong allegorical structure. Here the imagination dwells upon the Creation myth to infer the conflicting human characteristics. The images and stories in this poem provide an opportunity to discover more about Iran.

since we chanced out of the loins of Eve
and Adam became man’s exclusive pa
we put Jesus in the Church
so the hero so hidden in women’s loins
would manifest instantly
to send death
that’s ahead of the horse
far from the house

Through a soliloquy, the problems facing the narrator are expressed. The entire poem is a soliloquy in which the poet speaks his thoughts out loud. Imagery is laced with continual references to beasts of prey and hypocrisy even within the family.

the alley in each house is the father
and for pa
a nurse
that is privately
and a rice paddy which can’t be sold without my signature
I am heir to your wound father
what have I to do with your garden
give your assets to your brother
and your son in law who sleeps with the most sisterly god
enjoying his time

I’m like a brigade who’s lost a country
my base is lost, no longer to be found
I’m gone like a sunrise after sunset mother
at least sweep the clouds off the mountain of Karbala
plow the snow weighing down on my roof
don’t cry
just your being there for me to look into your eyes
is still more than enough
the fact that you kept saying God is Great aloud as I misbehaved while you were praying and now that God is Great keeps bugging your life
God is Great!

This poem has a story line and a second hidden meaning. It is about haunting memories of family life in a world where death exists everywhere. Although it is redolent with ambiguity, the poem succeeds in many different levels of meaning-personal, social and societal.

The road has a journey on either side
and me a half torn hyman a half torn hymn of Sohrab on the wedding night
I haven’t shed the father’s blood to come true
I’m whiling death’s remit
 

Many striking effects come from conscious or unconscious double meanings. One may encounter an ambiguous passage where there is no clear meaning, and come across an ironical part where several exist. The anachronism of the Iranian socio-political context at the moment would inevitably lead to a sudden and unintentional descent of ludicrous and ridiculous (bathos).
The protagonist makes reference to Sohrab (a tragedy character in Persian classical literature) as an analogy to imply his own predicament.

A Ashura band of chest-beaters this side of the way
singing oh my Hosein oh my Hosein
A band of chest beaters that side of the alley
Oh my standard bearer’s stature where art thou…
 

Here the poet is reflecting the anachronistic nature of the Iranian thinking patterns. Thus one ubiquitous claim amongst the politically dominant class is that human rationality alone is not enough to rely on in solving pressing personal/ social problems.
In the above assertion, a third person appears to remind the reader of this religious zealotry. The religious factional in-fighting has drawn even brothers into different set of ideological values simply because of their religious affiliations.
Hosein was a prominent religious figure in seventh century Islam, who lived under the most difficult outward conditions of suppression and persecution. He was eventually martyred in the battle of Karbala on the day called Ashura since.
The emergence of a third voice in the stanza above is belittling towards the factional divisions of the Shiite in commemoration of their Imam Hosein.

Like a nation bequeathed of Imam Hosein
a home town is left behind
from a little house
at the end of a road
in a remote place left behind
 

Etymology of Ashura then means Commemoration for Hosein after Battle of Karbala. Commemoration of Ashura has great socio-political value for the Shi’a. There are ceremonial dramatizations designed for popular consumption aiming to arouse pity and passion for Hosein.
Nevertheless, the protagonist resembles himself and his homeland with Hosein and Karbala. Reminiscences may become a framework for his marginal and dissenting status.
The re-emergence of the third voice in the stanza below is soothing this time round as a folkloric song is re-cited.
This interventionist folk motif that finds its place in this poem on a transitory basis contrasts with the narrative’s engagement with a surreal or fantastical world of fractured identity depicted in paradoxical sequences.
Another area in which this folk voice intervenes is when a melancholic folkloric song emerges between two schizophrenic presumptuous sequences.

the one who was my pa
the big baba
the friend on road
the one seen
jamming with me
I was left alone
Am alone
by my J’s
am alone
by my J’s
more alone
by my J’s
more than ever
Behind the conjured larger themes and landscapes we encounter a melancholic narrator who broods upon the sadness of life.
Cradled in the sunset going down the slope of Thursday
Halva again
why don’t you donate the dates again?
Oh my lord
The half finished painting of my wedding night
and I’m such a lout
that cannot help being a fathered child
 

What’s more, the poem goes on to articulate what for Abdolrezaei is probably a guiding aesthetic:

“whenever I have no time is the (right) time/I am no longer a man who is no longer like Adam!/if you are?/just say Ouch!”

Mansor Pooyan

“In Riskdom Where I Lived” is the title to a chapbook collection (1) of 28 poems by Ali Abdolrezaei with a wide typo-topical range.
The term Postmodernistic is used to describe Ali Abdolrezaei’s tendencies in post-Revolutionary Iranian literature. His style consists of both a continuation of the experimentation - championed by writers of the modernist period (1960-1979), and a reaction against traditionalist ideas implicit in classical Persian literature.

Postmodern Persian literature is difficult to define in its exact characteristics, scope, and importance. However, one could specify that the unifying features of Abdolrezaei’s poetry rest upon the denial of “Meta-Narratives” (Jean-Francois Lyotard) and “archetypal patterns” (Carl Gustav Jung). For example, instead of the modernist quest for meaning in a chaotic world, his poetry eschews, often playfully, the possibility of clear-cut meanings.
This distrust of conventional poetry extends even to the author; thus to undermine the author’s “univocal” control (the control of only one voice). The distinction between high and low culture is also attacked by the use of colloquial language and multi-phonics/genres not previously deemed fit for Persian literature.
He breaks away from objective reality in that a narrative is told from an objective or omniscient point of view. In favour of subjectivism, in poetry he turns from external reality to examine inner states of consciousness, In addition, he explores fragmentation in both narrative- and character-construction. The poem: “At The Priory” is often cited as an example of this style. This poem is fragmentary and employs pastiche to demonstrate the working of extreme subjectivity as an existential crisis. What we call reality is actually the construction of our minds. This is to say, our lives are not the subject of random fate, but reality is of our own making. It is shaped by manipulation of material events and emotions around us from a logocentric point of view.
While people are inundated with information technology, there is a shift into hyperreality (Jean Baudrillard) in which our understanding of the real is mediated by simulations of the real. The poem “Sausage” presents a virtual narrative with virtual imageries. Here, particular techniques are invoked to address this postmodern hyperreal information bombardment. The first thing that strikes a reader about this poem is the absence of certain familiar elements. Underneath though, there is a great deal clarity of diction, and a rhythm that is organic. Intrinsic to the mood of the poem is a vivid economy of language and a subtle technique of intensification by repetition. It is the entire poem, not the word, that constitutes the unit of meaning. There is a dynamism and unified complexity configuring a fusion of subjectivity and objectivity. The reader’s imagination makes the connection - juxtaposing the photographic negatives to discover the unitary meaning.
Perhaps demonstrated most famously and effectively in poem “Mother me out!” is the belief that there’s an assumed ordering system behind the chaos of the world. For the poet though, no ultimate ordering system exists, so a search for order is fruitless and absurd. The poem has many possible interpretations.
The sprawling canvas and fragmented narrative of the poem “Bandar Abbas” has generated controversy on the “purpose” of the narrative and the standards by which it should be judged. Abdolrezaei believes that the style of a poem must be appropriate to what it depicts and represents. The post-revolutionary Iranian socio-cultural landscape is a text that with the help of the poet can be read and understood. This poem provides us with a narrative vision which in sharp contrast with the utopian dreams preceding the 1979 Iranian revolution. If post-Revolutionary Iran was a new Eden, or alternatively, a New Canaan, then it positively demanded poets who could articulate those metamorphoses/ manifestations envisaging such destiny:
…and since February walked a brand on my face
I am looking for a July bullet hid behind these walls
This wall this snail shell that revolves round Nothing
Where does it end?
In the poem “Junction”, it seems to define the attitude of a generation exuding a much needed confidence in an age that, following the reign of the totalitarian regime in post Revolutionary Iran, could easily descend into disillusion and decadence. There exists, desperately, a quest for action demanding recognition that the status quo has to change. Abdolrezaei’s work is, prophetically, heralding something new about to emerge into view. His imagery is consistent with contemporary life representing the spontaneous expression of the poet’s thoughts and feelings. He sees poetry as a vital part in the process of creating transformation.
The lost identity of the poet is compensated for by the act of poetry writing. The poem “Great Men” expresses a belief that fires every Iranian poem into life:
It had gone to your head
that being a poet needs a tall stature
A tall shout
which the faster they ran, the harder they’d reach

The poem is the identity of the poet actualised in the process of writing it. By the same token, one can argue that poetry enacts identity for the reader as s/he gets engaged in the re-creative process of reading. Thus, poet and audience create, interactionally, a brief momentary sense of communion through a fragile web of words.
The embedded elements of surrealism and expressionist symbolism in the poem “Cloud” explore the damaging restrictions of social life following the Iran-Iraq war.
The narrative substance of “Held my hands and step by step died of sorrow” refers to the lost relationships in the poet’s mind whose past deeds and aspirations are itemised as a way of fixing the odds of a confused identity, or self-definition, in exile. Here the poet himself appears to represent a strategy of existing in space rather than time.
The poem “Park” indicates that there exists no teleological sense of Progression and development as life circles back and forth.
In the poem called “Go as the go that I went”, by taking up the “I” role, the poet demonstrates that actually there is no difference between his role and the “Other”. Never, throughout his career, has Abdolrezaei presented a stable sense of the “I” in his poems.
This singular pronoun might be referred to anybody whose role is not desirable. But the poet puts himself in that position taking on the wicked roles and writes about the implications.
The poem, evidently, requires playfulness and the sprightly mobility of words and rhythms announces that life is an open-ended motion which at times creates unease:
Go towards the go that I went; don’t go so you’re left behind
for wherever I didn’t leave, there I stayed
wherever I reached, there I was
As the poem draws to a conclusion in which very little is actually concluded, the narrator seems to be speaking only for the elusive character of his own identity.
To re-create a new identity in exile, the poem “Album” is a manifestation of reinventing his life in the process of remembering and rehearsing it. This poem establishes a link between the world of poetry and his original/ local world of farming life. “Album” is itself, centrally, indicative of a certain alienation resulting from his present life of exile and the need somehow to negotiate the distance between origins and present circumstances. The distance between the two is marked by physical distance as well as a kind of cultural disjunction.
In another poem “White Reading”, we witness an intimate contact between the “I” and “you”. All barriers (temporal, spatial and cultural) between poet and audience are abolished as the creation of the poem itself has become an act of communion. The open-endedness of this poem is not simply portrayed in the brave closing lines. On the contrary, it is scattered throughout the entire conception of the poem. Life like a poem is an on-going construction whereby we are parties to organise it interactively.
The self-conscious dialogue between the poet’s varied personae sets the tone of the poem “Dictation”. The poem interrupts itself twice with a third commanding voice while the poet looks back over his life. Although the poem is written in the first person, the reader learns little about the protagonist, who remains a representative figure. The “I” of the poem can speak for all men because no particular identity is ascribed. The mood of the poem brushes with tragedy in the final stanza, in that a new poem “always rubs out other poems”. Thus, the final line: “Poets! Stop writing hands up” is a verdict in the sense that defeat in inevitable and all people will die.

There is a challenging risk the proponents of the convention may pose: are you playing the role of this or that character? The poet has given in advance his verdict: I am this and that and the “Other”. I am enacting them all. To say this is to relinquish any demarcation between wickedness and righteousness. In art as in life, he doesn’t mind being confused with slovenliness or a lack of consideration for others. This approach is in sharp contrast, for example, to British great poet W.H. Auden who said in 1965:
“…once I wrote:
History to the defeated
May say alas but cannot help nor pardon.
To say this is to equate goodness with success. It would
have been bad enough if I had ever held this wicked doctrine,
but that I should have stated it simply because it sounded
to me rhetorically effective is quite inexcusable.”(2)
In these assembled rather short pieces, a glimpse of his poetic intentions and range of theme/ genre is available to English readers. Obviously for a better understanding, one has to look at his writings from a historical perspective i.e. their main chronological order.
At first, his work is too obscure and dense. But its richness of imagery, its uniqueness of language and sudden surprising shifts of diction are remarkably convincing as the dust of obscurity settles. In his poetry, there is a tendency to use personal/social references which an unfamiliar reader cannot place. This spectacular ability to discuss vast areas of human experience through his own brand of psycho –politics, if not daunting his rivals, nevertheless has been, quietly, inspirational to his opponents. Some critics have attacked certain lengthy poems as being maximalist, disorganized, sterile and filled with language play for its own sake.
Abdolrezaei’s life and work does not fit into tidy pigeonholes. There will be obvious overlaps and shortfalls when trying to compartmentalise his work or his own characteristics. We never step twice into the same Abdolrezaei, as his poetry doesn’t show a man bound into a decreasing circle of repetition. His creative power is at its peaks and not yet showing signs of descent. During the last 15 years, his poetic profile has been most jaggedly visible and ubiquitous across Persian poetic territories in Iran Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Abdolrezaei as the founding father of the new Poetic tradition is creating new visionary, new expressive language and new potentialities in poetry. His line of poetry counteracts traditional Romanticism supplying workings of form and language on which the reader can rely to bear their own interpretation. That is to say, create meaning through making connections, establishing priorities and building structurations.
Abdolrezaei can’t, except with considerable reluctance or qualification, confine himself and his creativity within the straitjacket of Persian orthodox perspective i.e. create poetry less individualistic and idiosyncratic. In spite of the risk of appearing eccentric or anarchic, he seems to speak to us from out of the depths of his solitude through schemata largely unmediated by social or literary convention. So to invent, to unravel a form via which he can express his own vision of life, may be interpreted as a means to self-definition and as a demonstration to seek identity. Nevertheless, his language and his sense of identity are interwoven and have been changing respectively.
Since poetry is, primarily, a drama of the self, it wouldn’t be Tautological to say that the notion of the self itself has its source in language that never inheres in the real. That is because writing i.e. the act of turning experience into language possibilities, deals, in the first instance, with epistemology and matters of cultural perception and communication.
The distinctiveness of new poetry began to emerge nearly a decade later after the Revolution. Along with the progressive tendencies in Secularism and Human Rights, Iranian literary nationalism began to take shape. This New poetry order grew up out of a body of ideas which, primarily, rest upon individualism and imagined reality.

Finally, I wish to reiterate that this anthology has come about as a result of efforts made by Abol Froushan as the translator of the poems from Persian into English.
I should cite that Abol Froushan himself is a poet whose work has been published widely. For Abol words as objects per se, representing sound and forms, are of far more significance than they generally are for Abdolrezaei. Having said that, though, it must be said that just like Abdolrezaei, Abol is concerned with rendered experience rather than statement. He believes in organic form, rhythm and cadence that are necessary product of a particular moment and voice.
It seems Abol’s poetry adheres to a great extent to Objectivism wherein the concern with music, sound and sensuous is at its strongest. In line with this approach, ideas are presented sensuously and intelligently and no predatory intention is pre-meditated. In his work, meaning is subordinated to sound, in that the individual word becomes an object and that the order and movement of sound in a poem might create a flux of emotions more significant than the underlying literary meaning.
For Abol there is a one-to-one relationship between the inner world and the outside world out of the window. His abstract expressionist poetry dramatises that relationship to the re-creation of experience. What he is after is just juxtaposition of one word against another so that a temporary suspension of habitual thought can occur in the process of writing. A poem ossifies within any disjuncture that mind-flow stops, and a temporary void is created. In these circumstances, the discontinuous activities of the poem are in line so much with how it says, as opposed with what it says.

July 2008
1- This chapbook was published Exiled Writers INK translation scheme.
2- Collected Poems: edited by Edward Mendelson: 1994: Author’s
forewords
3- Finally, thanks to Dr Helen Pearce for help in editing this text.

Ali Abdolrezaei the most acclaimed poet of pos-Revolutionary Iran was born in 10 April 1969 in Northern city Langarud. He completed his compulsory education at his native town in Iran. Ali finalised his higher education with a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tehran technical and Engineering University.
In September 2002, he had to flee Iran due to the serious scrutiny and censorship of his work. After a few months stay in Germany and two years in France, he came to Britain and has been living in London since.

He began to concentrate on poetry in 1986 and continued to write ever since prolifically. His poems exert great influence on many younger poets. He managed to get published seven volumes of his work inside Iran. His last four poetry volumes, published on the internet, make a poetic as well as a literary watershed. With an additional volume of poetry awaiting publication, he is the most controversial Iranian literary figure both inside and outside the country.
His twelve published books of poetry have challenged traditional Persian poetic language and have exercised a decisive influence on post-Revolutionary Iranian literature. These poetry books bring together a fascinating selection of themes by one of Iran’s most talented and extraordinary poets. They do focus on the feelings of anxiety, isolation and the sense of loss that Iranians in general, and intellectuals in Diaspora have been experiencing in the last 30 years.

Ali Abdolrezaei’s poetry shows that the contemporary art of Iran has been hugely influenced by the traumatic historic events of the last three decades and that they have affected millions of Iranians in one-way or another.
He is young and speaks for the new generation of Iranian aesthetics. The trajectory of Abdolrezaei’s career begins in a blaze of vision capable of speaking in the voice of a generation with multi-facetted vibrations. At times, he appears to portray deeper sceneries of the new artistic temperaments and the young’s cultural chasms with the past amid a repressive political regime. Abdolrezaei’s reputation as a poet, speaking in the voice of his time, spread in the early 1990s and received wide critical attention. His poetry tackles difficult themes with a mastery of craft. An impressive range of Iranian critics and writers has made statements about him and his work has been translated into several languages.
Ali’s outstanding contribution both honours visibility of contemporary Iranian literature on the world stage and creates a greater opportunity for new Iranian voices to be part of the modern conversation through these challenging times. His poetry caused a group of young poets turn away from the legacy of Modern Persian Poetry to establish the Persian New Poetry order.
They have relinquished the idea that the aim of poetry should be to express high emotion and the deepest feelings and forces of nature. Their subjects tend to be smaller and their language more colloquial with a sense that reality is interwoven into the text. I should explore these characteristics later on in this critique.

Abdolrezaei ’s life and work does not fit into tidy pigeonholes. There will be obvious overlaps and shortfalls when trying to compartmentalise his work or his own characteristics. We never step twice into the same Abdolrezaei, as his poetry doesn’t show a man bound into a decreasing circle of repetition. His creative power is at its peaks and not yet showing signs of descent. During the last 15 years, his poetic profile has been most jaggedly visible and ubiquitous across Persian poetic territories in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Abdolrezaei as one of the founding fathers of the Persian New Poetic tradition is creating new visionary, new expressive language and new potentialities in poetry.

Ali Abdolrezaei’s voice as a poet is clear and unmistakable; his style and subjects are completely his own. Ironically enough, his strongest poems are often those which describe personal experiences rather than world events. He sees changes in the forms and subjects of literature as a way of helping political and social change. This aspiration to change is reflected in the language of his poetry as well as the experiences it describes.
Early on in his career as a poet, Ali embarked upon a journey to find a language which could form the structure of his work. His initiated language has great life and energy; it does not look back to the archaically traditions of poetry/ writing. He gives the feeling that language has been forced into new forms to communicate new experiences.
In his poetry, image and language are inseparably made into oneness. He draws on a stylistic fusion of the two discourses that had for many years been deemed separate. Thus, his poems reflect a series of philosophical preoccupations. For example, the language of referentiality, the relation between sign and thing is denied. No singular construction of meaning is actually created through his poetic linguistic behaviour. That is to say, the intelligibility of the unknown is tightly implicated into the known. Knowledge and subjectivity co-exist in the reality of his language where knowing is coupled with not knowing and being with not being. It is in this sense that his poetry demonstrates the simultaneous occurrence of linguistic flow and ambiguous meaning-making activities. It is a language that speaks the impossibility of expression and, in so doing, exists in the space of its own negativity. Dominant themes of his poetry, therefore, revolve around the problematic nature of language, knowledge and subjectivity.

Abdolrezaei avoids, deliberately, confining himself and his creativity within the strait-jacket of Persian orthodox perspective as to create poetry less individualistic and idiosyncratic. In spite of the risk of appearing eccentric or anarchic, he seems to speak to us from out of the depths of his solitude through schemata largely unmediated by social or literary convention. So to invent, to unravel a form via which he can express his own vision of life, may be interpreted as a means to self-style/ definition and as a demonstration to seek attention/ identity. Nevertheless, his language and his sense of identity are interwoven and have been changing respectively as his poetry grows from strength to strength.

Ali’s poetry breaks away with the traditional Persian poetic language alongside the traditional concepts of the heavy-weight Persian poets. He does not use traditional forms of rhyme and rhythm. He demonstrates the full swing away from the formal classical style of verse writing. Whilst playing with verse, Ali recognises that he was attracted by their appearance and not by what they claim to be their true substance. His style depends on the counting of syllables and the sound-patters of the words, in a way which reflects the patterns of Old Persian poetry-prior to the Islamic era.
Ali avoids adhering to great themes and grand language. His protagonists are engaged with daily life and correspondently, plainer language is used. His voice has achieved a relaxed naturalness, a fluidity which allows him to present poetry as though it were easy. He is a skilled storyteller, recounting the extraordinary in the voice of the everyday language.

Ali’s difficult style is the result of his unusual knowledge of words and bold ways of stanza building. There are buried layer upon layer of literary metaphors in Ali Abdolrezaei’s poetry. At first, his work is too obscure and dense. But its richness of imagery, its uniqueness of language and sudden surprising shifts of diction are remarkably convincing as the dust of obscurity settles.
His lengthy poems, in particular, are highly complex and often bring together a group of characters different in kind and time.
A guide is required to travel into his novel terrain which has all the semblance of the old, and yet is new. It is precisely this novelty clothed in the familiar that puzzles but also reinforces the reader’s desire to explore further into the twilight zone.
It is fluidity that makes Ali Abdolrezaei’s work so vibrant and so difficult to pin down. The poet’s creativity ensures the truth of his poetic identity can never, by definition, be found. His poetry is not the Word made Flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh. The meaning of his poems, like the meaning of a text on his biography, is not perpetually fixed. Thus, there is no original meaning that we can recover.

Abdolrezaei’s life and poetry as constructions are of a critical nature. Layers of narrative and revelation, wit and prejudice confront his readers. We should remain vigilant that at a fundamental level, his life and work are “open stories” accommodating diverse interpretations. Abdolrezaei is particularly aware that his poetry is destined to undergo transformations beyond his control. His resistance to having a biography written about him is part of this awareness to his future literary metamorphoses.
When considering Abdolrezaei’s work, the narrative makes up the constructed “I” that inhabits the poems. In other words, the poet is simply dispersed and lives in a bundle of texts strung together. The Abdolrezaei we perceive as a poet is also the product of discourses, which run through and beyond him. It is this puzzled wholeness vis-à-vis that obscured form which allow readings their genuine scope of experience.
Since poetry is, primarily, a drama of the self, it wouldn’t be Tautological to say that the notion of the self itself has its source in language that never inheres in the real. That is because writing i.e. the act of turning experience into language possibilities, deals, in the first instance, with epistemology and matters of cultural perception and communication.
Ali’s lines, reflecting his temperament, do not please critics who prefer poets to remain stable entities both in their history and in their writing. His poetry questions the stability of the relationship between writer and critic as the registers he uses are subject to constant change.

There is, hence, a challenging risk the proponents of the convention may pose: are you playing the role of this or that character? The poet has given in advance his verdict: I am this and that and the “Other”. I am enacting them all. To say this is to relinquish any demarcation between wickedness and righteousness. In art as in life, he doesn’t mind being confused with slovenliness or a lack of consideration for others.
*******

The embedded visions of Ali Abdolrezaei’s poetry consists of both a continuation of the experimentation- championed by Persian writers of the modernist period (1950-1979), and a reaction against traditionalist ideas implicit in classical Persian literature. The epithet “Persian modern poetry” refers to poetry that was written as long ago as the Constitution Revolution in Iran (1905), but in general the usage of the term usually implies literature since the 1950 until the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
Suspended between a half-forgotten traditionalism and an anti-establishment modernism, the occurrence of the Iranian Revolution initially won the heart and mind of the intelligentsia.
Following the foundation of the Islamic Republic in 1979, the devastating eight-year war with Iraq, where thousands of teenagers ran for martyrdom, scarred the psyches of the younger generation for years to come.
The distinctiveness of new poetry began to emerge nearly a decade later after the Revolution. Along with the progressive tendencies in Secularism and Human Rights, Iranian literary avant-garde began to take shape. This New poetry order grew up out of a body of ideas which, primarily, rest upon individualism and imagined reality.
The term Post modernistic is used to describe Ali Abdolrezaei’s tendencies in post-Revolutionary Iranian literature. Post-modern Persian literature is difficult to define its exact characteristics scope, and importance. However, one could specify that the unifying features of Abdolrezaei’s poetry rest upon the denial of “Meta-Narratives” (Jean-Francois Lyotard) and “archetypal patterns” (Carl Gustav Jung). For example, instead of the modernist quest for meaning in a chaotic world, his poetry eschews, often playfully, the possibility of clear cut meanings.
This distrust of conventional poetry extends even to the author; thus to undermine the author’s “univocal” control (the control of only one voice). The distinction between high and low culture is also attacked by the use of colloquial language and multi-phonics/genres not previously deemed fit for Persian literature.
In his poetry, there is a tendency to use personal/ social references which an unfamiliar reader cannot place. This spectacular ability to discuss vast areas of human experience through his own brand of psycho –politics, if not daunting his rivals, nevertheless has been, quietly, inspirational to his opponents. Some critics have attacked certain lengthy poems as being maximalist, disorganized, sterile and filled with language play for its own sake.

Ali Abdolrezaei usually exposes the undesirable aspects of the Iranian status quo through a clever, and sometimes quite bewildering, use of language. Abdolrezaei as a sharp-minded intellectual plays with the multiplicity of words’ meanings. Thus, one of the outstanding characteristics of his poetry is its receptiveness to language impressions.
Abdolrezaei’s work is, prophetically, heralding something new about to emerge into view. His imagery is consistent with contemporary life representing the spontaneous expression of own thoughts and feelings. He sees poetry as a vital part in the process of creating transformation.
Certainly, poetry is essentially a private art form. But his description of human hardship and suffering are not those of a man who can look at misery from a distance. His line of poetry counteracts traditional Romanticism supplying workings of form and language on which the reader can rely to bear their own interpretation. That is to say, create meaning through making connections, establishing priorities and building structures.
In today’s Iran, the right to freedom of expression is curtailed; thus poets cannot engage directly with critical political issues. In addition, general disillusionment with politics means political poetry is now largely unfashionable in Iran. Having said that, Poetry is the still small voice of opposition which avoids attacking the abusing power head on, nevertheless shows it to be the crude bully boy that it is. In current circumstances, Iranian poets can’t write without any resonance to politics as if they could shut the window and get on with their work. It’s something you can’t choose to forget about. Ali Abdolrezaei does not engage directly with politics but at the same time he cannot afford to ignore them.
The poets of the new order have an altogether sharper and more painful view of the suffering caused by a totalitarian regime seizing power in the wake of the 1979 Revolution. Among the poets of post Revolutionary era, there exists a sense of hopelessness in the face of world/ national events which they feel powerless to change or influence.

*******

Ali Abdolrezaei’s poetry revolves around a wide range of subjects. In his war poems, the misery of Iran-Iraq war and natural disasters take centre stage. These poems of fine qualities are against the futility of war and against the senior officers who avoid realising the death and destruction that their orders will cause to the men they command. Death and sorrow are intertwined into wider social problems.
In poems written in exile, the poet finds a basis of faith in memories of childhood and in the magic realm of being. Here he remembers the themes and stories of his early life. Nothing can be heard besides the voice of the protagonist whose floating thoughts are searching for a new system of meanings.
More over, such poems communicate a strong sense of vainness and loneliness. They do not suggest that life is a bitter tragedy. Quite the contrary, they show great drive in intervention on the one hand and acceptance, i.e. going with the flow, on the other hand. Much of his anger in these poems is directed against the pointlessness of adherence to an ideal type. They illustrate the urge to engage with the ambiguity as part of the creativity nature of poetry.
Ali’s latest poetry contains tricks of style and unusual images to depict the melancholia. Temporality appears to take centre stage in these. The greatness of the work is not in the thought or story it conveys, but in the music of the verse and the magical atmosphere it creates. All this is described in ordinary words which produce a strange and magical picture.
I would like now to move on shedding some light onto the reading of some prominent poems of Ali Abdolrezaei.

*******

The poem “Censorship”, strictly speaking, is an inferred biography. Although he prefers that no biography be written, he hopes attentive readers of his poems can extract as much knowledge from his language constructions as possible.
In favour of subjectivism, the poet turns from external reality to examine inner states of consciousness.
The poem: “At the Priory” is often cited as an example of his style. This poem is fragmentary and employs pastiche to demonstrate the working of extreme subjectivity as an existential crisis. What we call reality is actually the construction of our minds. This is to say, our lives are not the subject of random fate, but reality is of our own making. It is shaped by manipulation of material events and emotions around us from a logo-centric point of view.
While people are inundated with information technology, there is a shift into hyperreality (Jean Baudrillard) in which our understanding of the real is mediated by simulations of the real. The poem “Sausage” presents a virtual narrative with virtual imageries. Here, particular techniques are invoked to address this post-modern hyperreal information bombardment. The first thing that strikes a reader about this poem is the absence of certain familiar elements. Underneath though, there is a great deal clarity of diction and a rhythm that is organic. Intrinsic to the mood of the poem, are a vivid economy of language and a subtle technique of intensification by repetition. It is the entire poem, not the word that constitutes the unit of meaning. There is a dynamism and unified complexity configuring a fusion of subjectivity and objectivity. The reader’s imagination makes the connection- juxtaposing the Photographic negatives to discover the unitary meaning.
Perhaps demonstrated most famously and effectively in poem “Mother me out!” is the belief that there’s an assumed ordering system behind the chaos of the world. For the poet though, no ultimate ordering system exists, so a search for order is fruitless and absurd. The poem has many possible interpretations.
The sprawling canvas and fragmentary narrative of the poem “Bandar Abbas” has generated controversy on the ‘purpose’ of the narrative and the standards by which it should be judged. Abdolrezaei believes that the style of a poem must be appropriate to what it depicts and represents. In this poem, the post-Revolutionary Iranian socio-cultural landscape constitutes a text that with the help of the poet can be read and understood. This poem provides us with a narrative vision which is in sharp contrast with the utopian dreams preceding the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
In poem “Junction”, it seems to define the attitude of a generation exuding a much needed confidence in an age that could easily descend into disillusion and decadence. There exists, desperately, a quest for action demanding recognition that the status quo-following the reign of a totalitarian regime in post Revolutionary Iran-has to change.
The poem “Great Men” expresses a belief that fires every Iranian poem into life i.e. the lost identity of the poet is compensated for by the act of poetry writing. The poem as the identity of the poet is actualised in the process of writing it. By the same token, one can argue that poetry enacts identity for the reader as s/he gets engaged in the re-creative process of reading. Thus, poet and audience create, interactionally, a brief momentary sense of communion through a fragile web of words.
The embedded elements of surrealism and expressionist symbolism in the poem “Cloud” explore the damaging restrictions of social life following the Iran-Iraq war.
The narrative substance of “Held my hands and step by step died of sorrow” refers to the lost relationships in the poet’s mind. His past deeds and aspirations are itemised as a way of fixing the odds of a confused identity in exile. Here the poet himself appears to represent a strategy of existing in space rather than time.
The poem “Park” indicates that there exists no teleological sense of Progression and development as life circles back and forth. The circular movement of life is reflected in this poem. There exists an expression of the idea that, as well as going to a life without end, we come from another life.
In “Hermafrodite-5”, hotel as a metaphor is used to depict life in exile. The setting as an enclosed space circumscribes the narrative at an undefined location and undefined time. The hotel is the quintessential example of the exilic experience: solitary and mysterious.
In the poem called “Go as the go that I went”, by taking up the “I” role, the poet demonstrates that actually there is no difference between his role and the “Other”. Never throughout his career, has Abdolrezaei presented a stable sense of the “I” in his poems.
This singular pronoun might be referred to anybody whose role is not desirable. But the poet puts himself in that position taking on the wicked roles and writes about the implications. The poem, evidently playful and sprightly mobile in cadence and rhythm, announces that life is an open-ended motion which at times creates unease. As the poem “Go as the go that I went” draws to a conclusion in which very little is actually conveyed, the narrator seems to be speaking only for the elusive character of his own identity.
The poem “Album” is a manifestation of reinventing past memories in order to re-create a new identity in exile. This poem establishes a link between the world of poetry and the poet’s original/ local world of farming life. “Album” is an indicative of a certain alienation resulting from present life of exile and at the same time postulates the need to negotiate the distance between origins and present circumstances. The distance between the two identity parts is marked by physical distance as well as a kind of cultural disjunction.
In another poem “White Reading”, we witness an intimate contact between the “I” and “you”. All barriers (temporal, spatial and cultural) between poet and audience are abolished as the creation of the poem itself has become an act of communion. The open-endedness of this poem is not simply portrayed in the brave closing lines. On the contrary, it is scattered throughout the entire conception of the poem. Life like a poem is an on-going construction whereby we are parties to organise it interactively.
The self-conscious dialogue between the poet’s varied personae sets the tone of the poem “Dictation”. The poem interrupts itself twice with a third commanding voice while the poet looks back over his life. Although the poem is written in the first person, the reader learns little about the protagonist, who remains a representative figure. The “I” of the poem can speak for all men because no particular identity is ascribed. The mood of the poem brushes with tragic in the final stanza, in that a new poem “always rubs out other poems”. Thus, the final line: “Poets! Stop writing hands up” is a verdict in the sense that defeat is inevitable and all people will die.

The poem “Long Live War” illustrates the themes of love and war entwined in human affairs. The feelings and ideas associated with these are enacted upon in this poem.
As well as the Iran – Iraq war during the Eighties, the poem can be read as a virtual depiction of a state of civil war in Iran between religious totalitarianism and secular pluralism.
War in the shape of division and conflict recurs in this poem in varying themes: split families; friends who’ve turned cool; supporters who turn against the state; tensions between classes and conflicts between factions. War, however, was only one powerful agent of change at the beginning of post-Revolutionary Iran.
In this epic poem, love (in the form of sexual and patriotic) takes centre stage as the cause of the protagonist’s suffering.
His return from the battle-front appears as a plunge into a disorientating nightmare of confused feelings. He walks back into a society in which all areas of life have changed and everything is measured in terms of money. Now languid and moody, our `hero` begins to play poetically with words and discursively talks about front-line events. After return, the protagonist is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In addition, his patriarchical and at the same time puritanical religious inclinations have come in conflict with contemporary city life which demands he behave otherwise.
The character wondering what to do: re-inventing his lost identity; re-marrying the right person; re-storing broken relationships with the authorities or turning to fulfilment of unsatisfied desires. He is however pulled overall from two different directions: love and war. Many themes in the poem derive from these two ideas. He decides, eventually, to opt for a far more egoistic vein enjoying the pleasures of solitude and melancholy musing.
“Long Live War” is a powerful poem to remind us not only of the beastliness of war but also of Wilfred Owen’s infamous poem “Dulce Et Decorum”.
The poem “Terror” is a continuation of a sequence from Abdolrezaei’s earlier poems. What links his exilic poems more than anything is this overriding sense of not belonging, of fragility, even in relationship with the self.
The poet in “Terror” is concerned with both emotional and cultural splits. Surreal reminiscences of homeland and the exploration of personal fragility constitute two pillars upon which this poem is based. “Terror” is a varied collection of themes with echoes across its different parts, all equally vital to the whole. Terror is a dark, unified poem moving towards regeneration.

What starts as a self addressing piece (”From far away / you bury your father / wipe your mother’s tears / from far away”) quickly shifts into a poem about the speaker’s own elusive hold on the past:
”Friday is a bleak house that was massacred
and the family, the Iran which was executed at home”
In final section, “Terror” adopts the voice of a pragmatist as he speaks about the subtleties and complexities of his fortunes. The poem is delicately surreal, exploring the fragility of life and uncertainty.
Throughout, the poem draws on fantasies transforming the familiar into strange evocations of tensions of frustration and paranoia. This poem is a good example of his ability to compose with surreal agility, glimmering with shadows and more ominous implications.
Ali Abdolrezaei’s rich imagery and luxuriant imagination recalls the transformations of Chagall paintings and the dream-visions of Salvador Dali. His poetry is distinctively illustrative of post 1979 Iranian literature. This phase in particular includes a tendency to protest against social idealism, very characteristic of the previous literary modernism. Post-Revolutionary Iranian literature promises a new dawn – much like that outburst of art, literature and philosophy in Europe following World War II.

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Publications in English:

1- A collection of poems translated by Abol Froushan into English of Abdolrezari’s poetry under the title “In Riskdom where I lived” went to print by the Exiled Writers Ink in 2008. “In Riskdom where I Lived” is the title to a collection of 28 poems by Ali Abdolrezaei with a wide typo-topical range.
2- A review of “In Riskdom where I Lived” by Mansor pooyan published in “Exiled Ink!” issue 10, 2008.
3- For a better understanding, one has to look at his translated poems available on: www.haftaad.com. In these assembled rather short pieces, a glimpse of his poetic intentions and range of theme/ genre is available to English readers.

Bibliography of Ali Abdolrezaei’s writing:

1- ‘Only iron Men Rust in the Rain’, Vistar, Tehran, 1991.
http://www.poetrymag.ws/revue/ebook/aadmhaayehaahani/
2- ‘You Name this Book’, Tehran, 1992.
http://www.poetrymag.ws/revue/ebook/naameinketaab/
3- ‘Paris in Renault’, Narenj,Tehran , 1996.
http://www.poetrymag.ws/revue/ebook/parisdarrenault/
4- ‘This Dear Cat’, Narenj,Tehran, 1997.
http://www.poetrymag.ws/revue/ebook/ingorbehyeaziz/
5- ‘Improvisation’, Nim-Negah,Tehran, 1999.
http://www.poetrymag.ws/revue/ebook/felbedaaheh/
6- ‘So Sermon of Society’, Nim-negah , Tehran, 2000.
http://www.poetrymag.ws/revue/ebook/jaameeh/
7- ‘Shinema’, Hamraz , Tehran, 2001.
http://www.poetrymag.ws/revue/ebook/shinema/p0.html
8- ‘I Live in Riskdom’,Paris , www.poetrypub.info, 2005.
http://www.poetrymag.ws/revue/ebook/khatarnaak/
9- ‘Hermaphrodite’,Paris, www.poetrypub.info, 2006.
http://www.poetrypub.info/%d9%87%d8%b1%d9%85%d8%a7%d9%81%d8%b1%d9%88%d8%af%db%8c%d8%aa/
10- ‘A Gift Wrapped in Condom’, Paris, www.poetrypub.info, 2006
http://www.poetrymag.ws/docs/kaado_kaandom_ali_adbolrezaei.html
11- THE WORST LITRATURE, Paris, 2007
http://www.poetrymag.ws/docs/rakiktar_az_adabiat_ali_abdolrezaei.htm

12- ‘La Elaha Ella Love’ under publication.

Further Reading on Ali Abdolrezaei’s writing:

1- Saeed Ahmadzadeh Ardabili. ‘Neveshtaar Hargez’, 2006.
http://www.poetrymag.ws/docs/saeid_ahmadzadeh/neveshtar_hargez.htm

2- Pooyan, Mansor. ‘Shelik be Sonnat’, 2007.
http://www.poetrypub.info/%d8%b4%d9%84%db%8c%da%a9-%d8%a8%d9%87-%d8%b3%d9%86%d8%aa/

3- Shahrjerdi, Parham. ‘Risk of poetry’, 2008.
http://www.poetrypub.info/%d8%ae%d8%b7%d8%b1-%d8%b4%d8%b9%d8%b1/

Compared to the artistic means at one’s disposal when creating music or painting, W.H.Auden contemplated that for the poet, language has many advantages. In artistic discourse, there are three pronouns, three tenses and speech can occur in both the active/passive voice (1).
Ali Abdolrezaei idiosyncratically invokes all language possibilities in the narration of his subject matter. True or false his verses may be, but the deeds are distinctive of his style of diction/imagery and syllabic spell appropriate to the occasion. His approach breaks with the traditional Aristotelian narrative of a beginning, a middle and an end.

There are many poems in which the use of pronouns is fragmentarily accompanied by disorientated persona to indicate the heterogeneity of modern times.

Ali’s lines, reflecting his temperament, do not please critics who prefer poets to remain stable entities both in their history and in their writing. His poetry questions the stability of the relationship between writer and critic as the registers he uses are subject to constant change. It is fluidity that makes Ali Abdolrezaei’s work so vibrant and so difficult to pin down. The poet’s creativity ensures the truth of his poetic identity can never, by definition, be found. His poetry is not the Word made Flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh. The meaning of his poems, like the meaning of a text on his biography, is not perpetually fixed. Thus, there is no original meaning that we can recover.
He is young and speaks for the new generation of Iranian aesthetics. The trajectory of Abdolrezaei’s career begins in a blaze of vision capable of speaking in the voice of a generation with multi-facetted vibrations. At times, he appears to portray deeper sceneries of the new artistic temperaments and the young’s cultural chasms with the past amid a repressive political regime. Abdolrezaei’s reputation as a poet speaking in the voice of his time spread in the early 1990s with an impressive range of Iranian critics and writers making statements about him.
Abdolrezaei’s life and poetry as constructions are of a critical nature. Layers of narrative and analysis, wit and prejudice confront his readers. We should remain vigilant that at a fundamental level, his life and work are “open stories” accommodating diverse interpretations. Abdolrezaei is particularly aware that his poetry is destined to undergo transformations beyond his control. His resistance to having a biography written about him is part of this awareness to his future literary metamorphoses.

When considering Abdolrezaei’s work, the narrative makes up the constructed “I” that inhabits the poems. In other words, the poet is simply dispersed and lives in a bundle of texts strung together. The Abdolrezaei we perceive as a poet is also the product of discourses, which run through and beyond him. It is the wholeness and that depth of form coming from inner experience which allows intertexual readings their scope.

The poem “Censorship”, strictly speaking, is an inferred biography. Although he prefers that no biography be written, he hopes attentive readers of his poems can extract as much knowledge from his language constructions as possible.
This poem is soaked in metamorphosis: as a very comprehensive metaphor. This motif in both literary and real forms crops up constantly. The weird isolation the helpless rejection and the tragic perversion forced on him are so intense that it would seem impossible in almost any other society.
 

My heart is bleeding for the poet whose queue of words is getting longer
for the branch less sparrow who’s swallowed its twitter
for the restitution of a crow with no overhead wire
for myself
gone from the house like electricity

This poem is written from a heightened, desperate, point of view. The final assertion is the admission of the metamorphosis he underwent as to become a poet.
 

I was somebody
Did the foolish thing became a poet!

To be a poet is a foolish decision committed, oddly, by tragic heroes - with a suggestion of scapegoat or criminal. This transformation belongs to Us because We are negated by Them and Their alienation.
Poetry is a transcendental symbol for rebirth. It is only through such experience that we can leave the old baggage for good and be reborn. There exists a purification notion of poetry: a sustained flood of metaphor shifts throughout the poem.
In the exile, from his cold heights, he can see differently; free of the old perspectives one returns with new insights.
 

How this side of being where I am is all the more other-sided in Iran
Fathurt mothurt my brothurt!
My condition is more critical than hurt
writing’s more emasculated than me
 

Writing is akin to mountain climbing or to the hero’s dangerous actions/ journey. Analogy of the task of writing poetry is extended even to the painful labour of human birth.
Poetry is a means by which to realise that the well-entrenched discursive structures and social interests attempt to supervise meaning and truth. In the above stanza, the suffix `hurt` is added to the closest endeared family roles (e.g. brother; mother and father) to imply the painful sense of meaning associated with the concept Identity. Although the poet is reborn in exile, his sense of belonging to the beloved home is still hurtful. Here a symptomatic reading of the poem, as a metaphor, is called for.
 

In pursuit of the lesson I did at school
I’m no longer Jack the lover to my Jill
I’m doing my new homework
You cross it out
 

His estrangement from society, either indigenous or exiled, allows him to see its shortcomings. Poetry for Abdolrezaei is a vehicle by which he treats serious subjects in an ironically lowbrow manner.
The most important poetry technique that Abdolrezaei explores in his work is what we might call the ‘unexpected’ principle. He allows the reader to develop a series of expectations which he then disappoints by injecting incongruity. In the stanza above, the second line negates the first and the forth line is demanding an action to annihilate the third. Once the reader has exerted the conscious effort needed to solve these incongruities, s/he may inescapably come to accept a fresh evaluation as to rethink their life on the basis of the poem’s insights.
Abdolrezaei’s position comes close to trapping the elusive truth and making it available to the conscious mind. The truth that this poem reveals may be a serious insistence on the impossibility that humankind speaks truth. By the same token, it is inevitable that humankind suffers from past experiences.
 

I in my life who am pen like to the lines of this meagre page am mother
The cat’s paws are still prancing
to scare the mouse
running for the hole they filled
 

Poetry is itself an instance of play-acting to reveal something to actors who may never come to realise what they are really like off-stage. This poem implies the poet can say something true only on the page face, as the stage on which he verbally plays. The poem asserts that speaking the truth may irritate the reader. So Abdolrezaei indeed contradicts Keats’s axiom that “poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity”. His poetry is meant to scare those incapable to face truth. It requires an effort to discover the exact relevance of his allusions used in this stanza. In poems, he acts as cat scaring readers, mice-like, to run for the hole.
 

In the massacre of my words
they’ve beheaded my last line
and blood ink like is hitting on paper
there’s death stretched over the page
 

The poem starts in earnest with an outright violence “massacre of my words” which is responsible for the rest of it. The rebellious massacre of words occurs when the assumptions behind `truth` are confronted. Via a system of dichotomies, someone who desires `beauty` assumes it is `truth`. Those who are shocked into moral awareness beyond the dichotomy of the pretty and the ugly must have waged such a bloody war on the poet’s words. Their demands are simple and absolute. The naïve, enraged audience marched on to massacre his words and behead his last lines. But their enduring belief would bring them to grief elsewhere.
This “Achilles’ heel” constitutes the contrast between what the poet looks for and what the power relations expect him to show.
Despite the expectations, the poet moves, deliberately on not trying to be aesthetically pleasing or emotionally adhering to the dualistic vision of `manhood` versus `womanhood` as in the nursery rhyme “Jack and Jill” learnt at school.
 

a new gun has finished off the world
and I imported goods like through this alley’s doors
am still the very meagre room that emigrated
 

The new weaponry safeguards the same long literary and iconographic tradition believing that aesthetic qualities signify righteous ones.
The theme of pain, running through the entire poem, refers to the difficulties inherent in the execution of poetry that might elevate humans from such prejudiced assumptions. This endeavour forced the poet to leave his homeland and immigrate to Britain. In spite of such a huge step, he says he is still the same “meagre room” in an alley back home. The lines in the following stanza describe his plight not yet relieved in the exile.
 

and London with its hair highlights of a weather is still
sisterly awaiting
Death to stretch over my body
for life to kill me again
 

Abdolrezaei’s experiences of life in London are presented here in an abstract form because literal depictions can’t be met by instrumental language.
If poetry isn’t wish-fulfilment, what is it? Abdolrezaei would say it’s a means through which our aspirations for the developmental truth and existential rebirth are satisfied.
In the very last stanza, the poet appears to have contempt for poetry:
 

I was somebody
Did the foolish thing became a poet!
 

Is his assertion to be taken at face value? His poetry says it all for him: he made his poem and it is our turn to “cross it out”, censor it or face reality.
This heavy metal poem exhaustingly manages to achieve the metamorphosis of pain and vision into art. The beauty of the representation and the ugliness it represents are both affirmed and concealed under the success of its illusion.
In this poem, the role of the reader is crucial; for what it sets up is an open-ended interpretation in which the hermeneutic circle is never closed.
Abdolrezaei’s poetry is a carnival rite rather than a solemn memorial, and his language has an astonishing lexical range and ironic implications.

September 2008

1- DICHTUNG UND WAHRHEIT-VIII-1959
2- I should thank Dr. Helen Pearce once again for her friendship and kind contribution in auditing this article. ]]> http://pooyan.poetrymag.ws/?feed=rss2&p=3