When we think of Iran we imagine as we do with most countries, that the people are like their political leaders, in this case possibly close minded. Poetic expression for the west is for the intelligent, or thought of as 'sissy' and generally for women. Iranians however, as the podcast I just listened to and got from BBC documentary podcast (available on itunes) called Nightingales and Rose informed me on the poetic nature of Iranians. In Iran;"Poetry permits all levels of society, its not thought of as a elite thing, or a sissy thing, or a kind of girly thing, as in many ways it is thought of in the west, its just thought of as a human thing... so to be in touch with poetry is to be in touch with being human in the best sense."For the Iranians their poets are like their profits, they are the "the saints that (we) turn to... (we) turn to them to look for words of advice... and to go on and deal with the predicaments of our everyday life." Iran has a 'enthralling literary landscape', where poetry is a part of all areas of Iranian life, extending from scolding children, to political protests. "Persian literature has both bored from and influenced great literary cultures of the world and Iranians may not claim to love their poetry more or less then anyone else but (I think) if there is such a thing as a soul of a nation or people then Iran's perhaps more than most is a poetic soul." Its interesting to hear of such a beautiful connection between people and poetry, especially in a country, where I as a american would other wise not see this beautiful side of the culture. Poetry in Iran is often accompanied by moving music. A 10 day event is described in which thousands of people and poets came together for 10 nights to recite poetry and make a statement for freedom of speech, during which the people were surrounded by Iranian special forces as if they were a "enemy".
Resources on Youtube:
No comments:
Post a Comment