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Farideh Hassanzadeh-Mostafavi is an Iranian poet, translator, and freelance journalist. Her poems appear in the anthologies Letters to the World, Contemporary, Women Poets of Iran and Anthology of Best Women Poets.
She is the author of Eternal Voices: Interviews with Poets East and West, and The Last Night with Sylvia Plath: Essays on Poetry. In addition, she has translated:
Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot, Federico Garcia Lorca: A Life by Ian Gibson, Anthology of Contemporary African Poetry;
Selected Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva;
Women Poets of the World;
Twentieth Century Latin American Poetry;
Selected Poems of Iaroslav Seifert;
Pablo Neruda: A Passion for Life;
Blood of Adonis by Samuel Hazo;
The Beauty of Friendship: Selected Poems by Khalil Gibran;
Selected Poems by Blaga Dimitrova;
The Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry; and
The print of cat’s paw in the life and work of poets, novelists, politicians, paintors, religious men, actors, physicians and scientists.
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English
version
ISN’T IT ENOUGH?
I gave up love
being satisfied with quiet of shadows
And memories.
Time was passed
moments exploded
by the rain of bombs.
At nightfall
I don’t brush my dreams any more
At nightfall
I don’t care for the wandering sun any more
At nightfall
I leave the frightened moon in the sky
to shelter under the ground.
I am neither a woman nor a poet any more.
Night by night
more and more,
I feel real.
Like bloody sound of alarms,
Like roaring anti-air crafts,
Like falling bombs and rockets,
which turns the ruins and ashes
Into the eternal reality;
I feel night by night more real
and older
so older and real that in the mirror
I see nothing anymore
But a range of empty chairs.
Oh, isn’t it enough?
What do we need
more than a loaf of bread
a quite night
and an armful of bleak love
for giving up and being satisfied
with the quiet of shadows
and memories?
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| In Answer to My Daughter: Why Did You Bring Me Into Existence? |
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English
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In Answer to My Daughter: Why Did You Bring
Me Into Existence?
Because it was wartime
and I needed lovemaking
to taste a bit of peace.
Because I was over thirty
and I needed blooming
before becoming droopy.
Because divorce is a word
for men and women
not for mothers and children.
Because you can never say:
my ex-mother
even when you attend my funeral.
And nothing, nothing in this world
can separate a mother from her child
neither hate nor death.
And you hate me
because I brought you into existence
only for my fear of loneliness
And you"ll never forgive me
until the day you bring a child into existence
unable to bear the burning ashes of
your dreams.
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