Thank you to everyone who joined our book club discussion tonight--it
was a lively and thought-provoking conversation. Our scheduled special
guest, Sholeh Wolpe (www.sholeh.info), was unable to join us, but she
took the time to generously answer these questions afterwards. Sholeh
is an Iranian-born poet, translator, and all around amazing person.
She is the author of The Scar Saloon: Poems (Red Hen Press). Her
translation of Sin --Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad  will be
published by the University of Arkansas Press this October, and her
next collection of poems, Rooftops of Tehran, will be published by Red
Hen in January, 2008.

Gayle --After reading My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard
Your
Eyes, I am curious to know whether these essays reflect your own
experience of Iran. Could you share some of your thoughts and feelings
about your homeland?

Sholeh --That's a good question. I left Iran just before the
revolution, and
alas, alas, I have not been back there since. However, I took my
culture
with me --a culture that had begun shaping my identity , an identity
that
would not only be shaped by the cultures and languages I stepped into
but
also,  in a serious way, affected how I received the new cultures and
languages the suddenly surrounded me.  I wasn't this blank slate that
any
color could splash on and remain itself.  My essence already had its
own
color which then turned any other color it came upon into a new and
different shade.  So has my experiences been the same as the authors
in this
book?  Yes, and no.  But we all come from the same culture, share the
same
language and respond to and identify with many things that have much
in
common.

Gayle--In "A Taste of My Cinema", Abbas Kiarostami says "Poetry in
Iran
pours down on us, like falling rain, and everyone takes part in
it...Because above all, poetry is the language of Persian culture.
Whether the poetry of Rumi or common poetry." Was poetry a part of
your childhood? How did you come to start writing poems yourself, and
how does Iran inform your poetry today?

Sholeh:  In every Iranian household there are two books you can almost
always find .  A religious book, such as the Quran, the Bible, Ketabeh
Aqdas, etc.  and a book of poem, usually poems of Hafiz.  I remember
as a
child (back in Iran,) after every big family meal on the  weekend, my
uncle
would pull out the book of Hafiz poems, and we would  each blindly
pick a
page. The poem we each picked was supposed to tell  us our fortune.
And to
our amazement, Hafiz was always right. He  always hinted at what each
of us
were thinking or dreaming about.  Another game we as children played,
was
reciting a stanza of a poem  and the next person would have to take
the last
letter of that poem  and recite another poem that began with that same
letter. We kept  playing until we exhausted our repertoire of
memorized
poems. But this  could take up to half an hour! Poetry was in our
blood, but
of course  not genetically. It was given to us as a gift and we
cherished
it.  When I came to this country, many years ago, I was amazed how
separate
poets were from their people. I say "their people" because I believe
poets
belong to the people.

Gayle --It was interesting to read about the Persian translation of
Kundera's novel Identity in Naghmeh Zarbafian's essay in the
anthology. It is clear that translation in this case is a form of
censorship. In your translation, I know you're striving to do the
oppositeo really let Forugh Farrokhzad's voice sing. Could you talk
a bit about the process of translation, and also let us know more
about Forugh Farrokhzad?

Sholeh --Forugh Farrokhzad was indeed the rebel poet of Iran. She was
born
in 1935, and in a society where women have historically had few
rights, she
married at sixteen to a man fifteen years her senior, divorced within
three
years and was forced to relinquish her only son to her husband. She
never
remarried, instead pursuing an independent life-style and a career in
poetry, something unheard of and not easily accepted in the Iranian
society
of the time. Her expressions of physical and emotional intimacy, much
lacking in Persian women's poetry up to that point, placed her at the
center
of controversy, even among the intellectuals of the time. She was
subjected
to tabloid gossip and portrayed as a woman of loose moral character.
Considered a poet of great audacity and extraordinary talent,
Farrokhzad's
poems are today much loved and revered by Iranians, and she is
regarded by
many as one of the most important female poets in modern Persian
literature.
Sadly, on Feb 14, 1967 her car was struck by a school vehicle killing
her
instantly. She was 32 years old .She is a poet as important as Sylvia
Plath,
Anne Sexton,  Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva.   It's just that up to now no
poet
had translated her work. In order to connect with a poet's work, the
translator must feel the poem, hear its music. mere word for word
translation of a poem cannot do that. So, in my upcoming book of
translations, "Sin", which will be out from the Univ. of Arkansas on
Sept
25th, I've attempted to not only be true to what Farrokhzad wrote, but
also
the music of her language. Without Farrokhzad, women writers such as
me and
Lila Azam Zanganeh may not be here today, writing as we do now.

Gayle--In your eyes, what can we do as activists (and artists) to help
prevent war in Iran?

Sholeh --What can we do to prevent war in Iran? I think perhaps that's
not
the right question to ask. I think the real question is: How can we
bring
people of various cultures together in a spirit of understanding and
reconciliation. And I truly believe that literature and the arts play
an
important role in bridging the gap between the east and the west
created by
irresponsible and power hungry governments, as well as a cowardly and
biased
media.  What you are doing now, which is reading a book which allows
you to
understand Iranian culture from the perspective of its people, is an
important step in preventing war. We have to begin somewhere. This is
a good
place to start.  We can stand in front of the White House for days
yelling,
" No War, Give Us Peace," but let me tell you, that wouldn't be as
effective
as taking good translated literature into schools, buying and
demanding more
translated literature from our publishers. Presently only 2%, or
something
ridiculous like  that, of literature in this country are translations.
That's disgraceful. A book can allow us to slip in another person's
skin,
see the world from his or her perspective.  It gives us the gift of
empathy.
This is how we wage peace in the world. Through teaching empathy to
our
children and to our fellow men and women.