Untitled
Mahnaz Yousefi, translated by Alireza Taheri Araghi
in me a hand
in me an eye
in me is a face that loses its smiliness with the seasons
of us . . . . . . . . of us
a party . . . . . . . a birthday
pounding till the incident at dawn
smile, you unhappy barefoot!
left in the stairs was nothing but my footsteps
how much for this gray cell that eats
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . eats the thought?
how much for this trashing trash can full of writing?
in debt, we slid our hands
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . into our pockets
mother
father
a family has judged my chagrin
and me
. . . . . . I suffer the world only as much as my womb
and my baby will come
. . . . . . . . . . . . my baby
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .who is the memory of a justice
and his face
. . . . . . . his face
. . . . . . . . . . . . . will beam in an annual routine
how much for it?
my hand
. . . . . . this is it
my eye
. . . . . . this is it
I am a face
. . . . . . sympathizing with your grief
From I Am a Face Sympathizing with Your Grief: Seven Younger Iranian Poets, edited and translated by Alireza Taheri Araghi
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Mahnaz Yousefi is the writer of Tasliyat be zan [Condolences to the Woman]. She is from Rasht, a city north of Iran, by the Caspian Sea. She is interested in Gilaki literature and history and tries to create images that are ethnic and local and deal with issues that rise from the juxtaposition of the local vs the central. She thinks her awareness of the Gilaki language improves her poetry. She believes the way she tackles with the language in her poems will suffer in translation unless she is as proficient in a second language as her mother tongue to translate her poetry herself. She exploits language, imagination, and history to explore modern life. She has a second manuscript, “Dogs Got Back to the Streets,” ready for publication. She is a law school graduate.
Alireza Taheri Araghi is an Iranian writer and translator. His translations have appeared in Asymptote, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Tripwire, RHINO, and Bat City Review, and his translation of Shahram Shahidi’s “Peace Before Cigarette Butt Storm” won the 2014 RHINO Translation Prize. His fiction has appeared in the Gloom Cupboard, Green Mountains Review, Notre Dame Review, Rusty Toque, Re:Visions, and Avatar Review. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Notre Dame and edits the online journal PARAGRAPHITI.
Read another poem by Mahnaz Yousefi, translated by Alireza Taheri Araghi, here.
