Interview with Azita Ghahreman: Self-Censorship and the Erasure of Women's Individuality in Poetry

Walking on the edge of the cornice is narrow and suffocating. This button does not open, trapped in the cover of a rented cat. My homeland was left behind on the journey, and this lazy parrot sleeps comfortably in its cage. I need to sleep, and time is short. Sooner than the shadows can leap, a few stitches and wrinkles say hello. In my expired time, the absent room's voice is nullified, and only love can... give time in such a way that you softly tumble into yourself, like a Tabrizian and illuminated like the moon after falling from the howls of dogs and extending escape. With these fearless hereditary words, does the sea write on this boat? Has the author lost its story? The hero has changed, spring is upside down, and this button still does not open. The travelogue of Serendip, no one was hidden in the dark. I must repair the boat again; the sea should enter the story from another door. The journey must deny my role in a way, and I must write on the big screen 'Adios'. Come towards the last leaves of autumn; the path is winding, warm up. It is camouflage. One is bent over us, our cheerful translation is in the red cup. A little cloud in that corner and shadows hold hands beside a tree, right in this scene, but what sudden snow under the snow, under the moonlight and the words. This photo is our souvenir. What you (heard) read were two poems from the book 'Hypnosis in Dr. Caligari's Office', the latest poetry collection by Azita Ghahreman, recently published in Tehran by Boutimar Publishing. Welcome, Ms. Ghahreman, to this week's 'Distant View, Close View' program. First of all, tell the listeners what the main theme and atmosphere of your latest collection is? Azita Ghahreman: Many years ago, when universities in Iran were closed - about thirty-some years ago - during the cultural revolution, I participated in cinema and film criticism classes for a short period. One of my favorite films was 'Dr. Caligari'. Although this film is considered a horror film genre and is a kind of prediction and prophecy of the era that followed World War I and the rise of fascism, the Nazi Party, and Hitler's coming to power. A person named Dr. Caligari hypnotizes and creates artificial sleep, forcing people to do things they are unaware of, showing them through dreams and nightmares. The film tells of a collective spirit in turmoil, which is very terrifying. At the end of the film, we realize that Dr. Caligari himself and those who have become his puppets all live in a mental asylum. Well, this was in my subconscious, but I had forgotten it. However, it appeared in one of my poems about love and forgetfulness. The poem is a dialogue between someone and their doctor, a dialogue similar to hypnosis. The name of this book is also the same. Attention to language in parts of the poems in 'Hypnosis in Dr. Caligari's Office' gains a special prominence. An attention that does not end in meaninglessness or sacrificing meaning to achieve a different linguistic structure. What is your relationship with language, or what angle do you establish with language in your poems? In recent years, while translating my poems, I collaborated with several English and Swedish translators, and my works were translated into English and Swedish. This experience was like surgery on my poems. I can confess that during the translation, I found the flaws in my poetry. Especially in the realm of language, I had to be very precise in answering the translators about why I used this word here, for example? What was my goal? What meaning do this line and these words convey in relation to the previous lines and the whole poem? I have always read classical literature with great interest. Much more than in the past, and when I was in Iran, I started translating. I think these may have helped my precision regarding language and finding new ways in my work and new discoveries. With this perspective, I was able to see myself from another angle. In some other poems in this book, it seems that the discussion of narrative techniques or 'the narrative act' in poetry has been important to you. While in other sections, the poems in this collection lead to a deep emotional feeling where language shows itself in the second stage and highlights it. This duality and fragmentation exist in this book. How do you explain these? Exactly. Many people have told me that this attention to narrative is an important part of this book. The title of the book, in its first edition in Norway, was 'Similar Reading'. A type of narrative performance, meaning the things I saw in childhood are brought into the book... There are even three poems in this book titled 'Similar Reading of Mashhad', 'Similar Reading of Isfahan', and 'Similar Reading of the Crow'. The most narrative-related elements may be in them. These, of course, have occurred based on the circumstances I have been in. I cannot provide an exact explanation for this. However, in some poems, there is more of a storyline, and in others, the lines are more concise, and there the language becomes prominent. A point that is more vividly seen in the poetry of female poets is the incorporation of gender-specific characteristics into the fabric and poetic world they create. This means that when you encounter the lines and their signs, even if you do not know the poet, you often realize that the poet of these lines is a woman. Or it can be said that these poems generally seem to start from what can be called a 'female world'. However, these signs are somewhat less visible in your work. That is, we are more faced with poetry without gender. Poetry in which the gender of the poet is less discernible. In some works, of course, it can be, but in most of the works in this collection, it is not. Every poet has questions about the world... whether in the position of being a woman or a man, both of which are related to our human condition. Like the geography we live in or the periods of our lives or the issues we are engaged with, each of these conditions can create a different space in a book. In this book, my questions are more related to a period of my life in migration, in search of a concept for life, a meaning for the stages of my life that I had passed through, and a quest to get as close as possible to a kind of 'meaning' in language. This was the most important thing for me. I think the issues related to my being a woman are shown in the more hidden lines of this book. Not to say they are hidden, but they seem to have settled and dissolved. The main issue in writing these poems was not just the expression of my feminine feelings. Ms. Ghahreman, I raised this expression of gender or femininity because in poetry after Nima, Forough is recognized as a symbol of successful and powerful poetry in the last half-century, whose gender is also visible and prominent in all her lines or even in her poetic tone. In our women's poetry, after the revolution, this issue has significantly diminished. I want to reach the question of how much the scourge of self-censorship has been effective? That is, how much does the ability of a book to obtain permission and pass through censorship and oversight affect the erasure of this feminine individuality and its internal and unique rhythms that distinguish and highlight gender in the poet's emotional expressions? Overall, do you think this is a result of censorship and self-censorship, or is it a result of the necessity and process of our poetry independent of censorship and social and political events? In my opinion, many times this issue goes back to a kind of self-censorship. Not just state censorship; it is the result of the struggles we have with ourselves as someone who speaks poetry and at the same time is a woman, and the social, cultural, and many psychological and personality issues that affect her life and world. However, there are times when certain characteristics are presented as a kind of preference in the space of poetry production for us. For example, this feminine voice. Then, it reaches a point where, in my opinion, it becomes a kind of censorship. Because instead of discovering things that have much broader circles in the position of being a woman or a human who speaks poetry and has searches in her life, it only emphasizes one aspect, creating a kind of compulsion and definition that one must be the spokesperson for that situation and that specific aspect, and both can equally relate to limitation and censorship. The poetry collection 'Hypnosis in Dr. Caligari's Office' is divided into titles and sections. For example, 'The Stepmother's Book', 'Yahya's Book', 'Similar Reading', 'The Book of Silence', 'The Book of Selma', 'The Book of Dr. Caligari', 'The Book of Rabia', 'The Book of Days', 'The Book of Red Rose'. All those differences and linguistic, sensory, and... fragmentation that I have somewhat addressed in my questions can be seen more prominently in these sections. Well, which of these sections do you consider a turning point for your next book or your future works? The section titled 'The Book of Red Rose' could be the first poem, as the subject and content of this section look at love. At the same time, there is humor in it, and perhaps a struggle full of joy and love. Just as the emotions of two people become intertwined, and games between them occur in the form of childish quarrels and reconciliations. However, at the same time, I tried to avoid clichés of love in this poem. I tried to write about the things that exist in love. The last poem that can close this section is one titled 'The Book of Selma', which is a long poem in twenty-some parts, and its name is the travelogue of Serendip. At one point, I was reading poems by 'Amir Khosrow Dehlavi'. There is a story in which several princes set out to discover a secret. Their mother is a queen who has sent them to search for this secret. However, during their journey, they find things that are much more valuable than what they started the journey for. In this book, I have encountered names that we recognize as symbols of romantic names in Arabic or Persian poetry, such as Azra, Leila, Najma; Selma, and a few other names. There, I have placed parts of my experiences; my life and existence, or the loving women I have known throughout my life. How in a romantic relationship, we transform each other; our gender exchanges with the counterpart. We place ourselves in each other's positions. Parts of this book are about love. About war. This poem was like a boat that guided me from a dark side in my soul with all the questions and the situation I was in to another side. Now, not that the other side has all the lights waiting for me. No. But I was able to start a journey and reach other places. For this reason, I think this poem could mark a new beginning.