qoutes from critics
August 28th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
What happens in Saghi Ghahraman’s poetry is a rare phenomenon, and one can say with the boldest words, that – with respect to the abundance of our feminist literature(Farsi)- it is the extreme divulgence of the feminine language in the shape of poetry.
Reza FarrokhFall, writer, literary critic, McGill University
April 2000, Sokhan’e Azad, literary quarterly, Montreal
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Today, our young society inside Iran, and abroad, for the unavoidable changes along the way, and in the search of “new definitions” for social relations, needs to explore beyond the traditional norms, and for this, we need women who can speak up, and be bold, and brave; women like Frough (Farokhzad), like Saghi (Ghahraman).
Shahbaz Nakhaee, essayist, political columnist,
Montréal 1997, Payvand, weekly newsletter, Montreal
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Saghi Ghahraman’s poetry contain a very strong femininity. It might be the first time Iranian literature is witnessing a woman attempting to put to words her feminine wants and desires. This is a tough path she has taken, and one wonders what will happen to her along the way. I can’t say where she would end up. She might end up in isolation, because society has other expectations of her as a woman.
Shahrnoosh ParsiPoor, novelist, United States
2002, Shahrvand, weekly newsletter, Toronto
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Despite her carefree appearance, Saghi Ghahraman is extremely precise. Her Island, which at the first glance seems to be chosen as a random act, is in fact a metaphor for the isolation and the dead-end doom, the fate of human being. This is her Island, with nothing in the outlook. Her aim in writing poetry is unlike anything other poets have attempted. While others are amazed by the changes in the nature and in the globe, she sets to write poems which are the very means for change. She is obsessed with stirring of the words on paper. Every poem she writes has a twin which is not written, but is implied by the one written. Some of the commotions over inappropriate language/themes of her work is pure injustice to poetry per se.
Her technique in The Whore of Babylon brings to mind the technique Joyce employed in the Finnegan’s Wake. Words she uses in her poetry seem to be sitting in the presence of the next word for the first time, ever. Her poems disturb the peace of their readers’ mind, mix together sinful and innocence, dance and death, anger and calm in a manner that, at best, has an smothering effect. Hers is not a kind of poetry that stands witness, but the kind that is uprooting, and destroying(norms/normalities).
Koushiar Parsi, writer, essayist, Netherlands , Laiden University
2004, Shahrvand, weekly newsletter, Toronto
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Saghi Ghahraman’s 2nd collection, The Whore is the savior contains 43 poem in 98 pages. Not only the title of the book, but every one of the poems like thunderbolts, or monsoons, sweeps the reader off her/his feet, and smash them down to the ground in another place, and along the way opens their eye to the breaking down and tearing away of cultural taboos. It’s an ancient pattern that wants women and shame hand in hand. History has witnessed horrific pains inflecting on women under this very pattern. Saghi Ghahraman’s poetry employs pop language, foundations of everyday life, and a precise and meticulous look at the details to explain her stripped individuality; an individuality which oozes with communal pain. Strangely enough she caries this heavy load wrapped in the silk of poetics, on her own shoulders.
