The
Iranian poet, Reza Baraheni says that "Perhaps one could say
that poetry is the most obscure thing that ever existed."
Let us reflect on the obscure
nature of poetry in modern times. I would like to start with a
personal experience. A few days back I had to apply for a
tourist visa to Europe. I filled out the visa form in this
manner; Profession - poet, and Reason for Travel- poetry
reading. The girl at the visa counter looked puzzled; maybe she
couldn't think of writing poetry as a profession. In the present
day world, poetry has become just a part time hobby. One has to
be teacher, doctor or something else before being a poet. Those
days are gone when the job of a poet was a highly regarded one,
and poets commanded respect in society. Today, a person can be a
full time player, dancer, artist or politician, but cannot be a
full time poet.
Every other branch of art seems to
be lucrative, a painter for instance can sell his paintings for
a substantial amount of money, but poetry cannot feed a poet. It
burns away the poet's heart, and takes away his/her money.
Coming to Reza Baraheni's
statement, I don't think that he means this when he says that
poetry is the most obscure thing that ever existed. Maybe he
was pointing a finger at both the ambiguity that exists in poems
and the fact that poetry and the profession of the poet is more
or less incomprehensible to many
In this issue, Maryam Ala Amjadi, a
young Irani poet tells us about the cruelty against poetry in
her article on Persian poetry. She says that the revolutionary
lips of the poet, Farrokhi Yazdi (1887-1939) were sewed together
with needle and thread by the order of the governor of Yazd and
yet, the inhumanity of this act did not stop him from keeping
his pen in constant motion. Does this act explain the obscurity
of poetry?
I don't think that we can get a
readymade reply for this question; we are entering the fifth
year of our poetic journey in search of poetry and various
questions related to poetry.
In this issue we have compiled a
number of Persian poems with the help of Maryam Ala
Amjadi. Persian poetry talks about pain and silence - silence, which talks a lot. We could not declare this issue as a
special one dedicated to Persian poetry, as we have voices from
different part of world in the section Poetry in Our Time. We
are sure we will bring out a special Persian issue of Kritya.
The paintings in this issue are by
Meena Chopra, who is also a poet. My best wishes to all readers
of Kritya on this successful fifth year of our poetic
expedition.
well every one to the first issue
of fifth volume of the kritya
