Collins Unbound

Hijab

A thin black scarf
hides hair, nose and lips
my eyes must speak
a thousand words I cannot say.

Lessons: how to make khoresht,
clean lace curtains
in buckets of bleach.
My only education.

Stealing Bijan’s Qur’an
to study by flashlight.
I look for my lost words
in ancient pages.

I walked that street
in my dreams
cradling thick bound books
with delicate fingers.

This morning I watched them burn
through the plastic screen
of my father’s television
as if it’d been scheduled to happen
like the 11 o’clock news.

I watched my dream
drift down to earth
in a thousand fiery pieces
and I danced in the ash
until my scarf burned
and my lips could breathe.
Fingers clasped pen
my story spoke.

-Soraya Bodaghi

Read about the event in The Trail article Students Gather to Commemorate Al-Mutanabbi Street where this poem was read.

About the poem author:

My name is Soraya Bodaghi and I was born in Tacoma, Wa. I’ve lived on Fox Island, WA since the age of six. I went to Charles Wright Academy in University Place, WA before coming to the University of Puget Sound. Now, I work at Celebrity Cake Studio in downtown Tacoma designing cakes.

I was brought up with a multi-cultural background with my father being Iranian and my mother being part German. I have always loved to highlight these cultures in my poetry and short stories. I was inspired to write this poem in recognition of the bombing that happened on Al-Mutanaabi Street in Baghdad. Unlike my peers, I chose to write from the perspective of a young girl in Tehran. I chose this perspective because I felt capable of imagining her emotions authentically. Although some people felt that my poem was unsympathetic, I felt that I had liberated my speaker. The poem of course is purely symbolic but it was meant to show that the unceremonious burning of ancient texts, specifically those written by men, gave this girl the opportunity to create her own place in literature’s history. Thus the bombing does free her emotionally from her oppressive society and gives her the encouragement necessary to put herself out there and to create a foundation for female writers of the Middle East to build upon.

This was important for me to address as someone with family still living in the Middle East because women’s rights need constant attention much in the way that they do in America. I wrote this in hopes of contributing to the larger conversation about the oppression of women throughout the world.

William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174833

-Wade Guidry

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The Oxford Companion to Modern Poetry (2 ed.)

Edited by Ian Hamilton and Jeremy Noel-Tod

Over 1,400 entries

This impressive Companion is an extensive guide to the lives of influential poets writing in English, in Britain and around the world, illuminating the influences, inspirations, and movements that have shaped the lives and works of our best-loved poets. It provides over 1,400 thoroughly revised and updated entries on modern poets active from 1910 to the present day.

First published in 1994 as the Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Poetry in English and compiled by a team of 230 experts, including famous poets such as Blake Morrison and Andrew Motion, this edition also includes new biographical entries on more contemporary poets such as Don Paterson, Anne Carson, John Kinsella, and Leslie Marmon Silko. It also contains insightful entries by well-known peers, such as Seamus Heaney on Robert Lowell and Anne Stevenson on Sylvia Plath.

The biographies are complemented by entries on poetry events and movements and lists of anthologies and important poetry prizes and prize-winners. In addition, many entries include details of in-depth supplementary material available online on the dedicated companion website. This superb reference work is the ideal companion for students of English Literature, Language, and Creative Writing, as well as for anyone with an interest in modern poetry.

http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199640256.001.0001/acref-9780199640256

-Jane Carlin