While Azadeh Moaveni is promoting her new book –Honeymoon in Tehran—she presents some interesting observations. Here is the link: Azadeh Moaveni.
The first comment on the clip reads:
“In 1997 I took these lessons in Iran before the marraige license was issued. There was a drug test, blood test, urine test, tetanus shot and a one hour family planning and sex education class. Females and males were separated but the content of the class was the same.
I was very impressed by the steps taken to assure some rudimentary teaching.
In comparison when I marrid in the State of New York, a license was issued on the spot merely by showing ID. There was a 24 hour cool off period imposed by the state after which the ceremony could take place. Oh, in New York my intended and I received a plastic bag which contained soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, laundry detergent, dishwashing liquid, and a brochure on contraception.”
Well, it was interesting enough to make me spend a full one hour of my premium time watching her presentation.
Every time she points out a positive comment, she makes sure it is followed by a perceived but irrefutable negative comment against the government of Iran! I do not know whether she does it for promoting her book or what, but It reminded me of our own monthly cultural meetings in which it was so natural for me to do exactly the same! I stopped doing it long time ago, not because I have changed my mind about the government. Not at all. In fact, I think the government of Iran is repressive and it tends to be more so as we move forward no matter who would occupy the office of presidency. But for two reasons. (1) Except for dress code and some other religious ones, any government under the same outright existential threat would be a lot more repressive than IRI is and living examples are abundant (2) Our enemies have created an atmosphere in which the spot light is on your negative comments ONLY and that is unfair. IRI has achieved outstanding progress under unbelievable circumstances including a devastating 8 years long war with the whole world represented by Saddam.
In respect to her opinion on a number of issues, I have a decisively different opinion, but I still think she has done a great job. While I think celebrating a day for women is as tricky as any other one, i.e. father’s day, mother’s day, etc., I think it is well worth one hour of it watching this video clip.
Having said that, here is some of what you might ponder about her comments:
1. The overwhelming majority of highly educated females is entirely a success story for IRI. This fact is vividly distortion proof.
2. Brain drain is a universal problem for less developed countries simply because the industrialized world are still capable to lure and steal them. No government in the third world drives them out.
3. As she pointed out the traditional mentality of Iranians has effectively offered a successful alternative balancing work and motherhood for women.
4. Except for dress code and some religious ones, Iranian women are better off compared with many other countries in the world, including the U.S.
5. Women are indeed the driving force behind any meaningful socio-political (but not regime) change in Iran.
به گزارش ایونا ، مهدي عاطف راد در رماني تاريخي - تخيلي با عنوان «آواز پاييزي» ، سرگذشت دكتر فاطمه سياح - نخستين استاد زن دانشگاه در ايران - را به تصوير ميكشد.
سير حوادث اين رمان به اواخر دورهي قاجار و اوايل دورهي پهلوي مربوط ميشود. به گفتهي نويسنده، بخشي از اين رمان تاريخي، واقعي و بخشهايي كه تاريخ دربارهي آنها سكوت كرده است، تخيلياند.
عاطف راد همچنين مجموعهي مقالاتي را دربارهي فروغ فرخزاد در كتابي با عنوان «فروغ در آينهي شعر فروغ» براي چاپ آماده دارد. در اين كتاب، 12 تم شعر اين شاعر مورد بررسي قرار گرفتهاند.
«گذار از رنجها در زندگي آنا آخماتوما» نيز عنوان ديگري از كتابهاي آمادهي چاپ اين نويسنده است، كه در آن، به انديشه، طرز تفكر، زندگي و آثار آخماتوا پرداخته شده است.
عاطف راد همچنين ترجمهاي از كتاب «ماسك» نوشتهي پيتر هال - بازيگر و كارگردان تئاتر و رهبر اپرا - را منتشر خواهد كرد.
موضوع اين كتاب كه از سوي انتشارات مينوفرد در دست انتشار است، بررسي پديدهي ماسك در هنر از جمله تئاتر، موسيقي و اپراست، كه مخفيكنندهي نيتهاي كارگردان و يا خالق اثر است.
«بيژن گرازاوژن در چاه افسون منيژهي سيمينتن» و «ماجراهاي من و صادق هدايت» از جمله آثار اين نويسندهاند.
She spread her smile
With her poignant felicity
And captivated today and tomorrow
Could I only hold on
To the angles of her lips
And lighten my heart
In the soft cushions of her hope
She reached out a “come”
Came and left footsteps on my heart
Filled with tears and kisses
I want to drag her in my soul
Cling on to every thread
Of her flesh and bone
So that in my body and being
I will carry her name and scent to my grave
My mother, my love, my Iran
~By: Tina Ehrami From “Persian Pomegranates- A Young Poet’s Soliloquy”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Iranian born Tina Ehrami (1980) is a poet, a writer and a public policy advisor. Her works have been published in various anthologies, literary journals and on line magazines.
Her poetry focuses on both personal and social matters. Through her writings she expresses her emotional commitment to Iran and its peoples struggle for freedom of speech. In her poems, mostly in free verse style, she uses shape and alliteration to develop coherence.
She lives and works in The Hague, The Netherlands.
Poems by Abbas Kiarostami, Trans. by Ahmad Karimi-Hakkad and Michael Beard.
Reviewed by DORNA KHAZENI
It is April 2000. Abbas Kiarostami is being given the Akira Kurosawa Lifetime Achievement Award by the San Francisco Film Festival. He has a heavy schedule of interviews. He has just returned from Uganda, where in March, at the request of the U.N. he made ABC Africa, a documentary about children orphaned by the AIDS crisis. Characteristically the focus of his gaze shifted away from death and desolation. All he can talk of is the spirited life force that was present amid the poverty and ravages of the country he has just returned from. He speaks of the beauty and majesty of the men and women he's met. He says that if he were ever to abandon his home in Iran, he would seek to become a citizen of Africa because he has never seen the will to live present in so vibrant, forceful, and unabashed a manner; he says he has never known a people so gracious.
In an interlude between two interviews — I am his translator from Farsi to English — he picks up a book. It is a book of poems he has just written. It is in Farsi. He reads the 220-odd poems to me one by one. In the quiet warmth of the afternoon in this room, his reading is measured as he slowly goes through the entire book. I am struck dumb both at the immensity of the moment, this private audience with a master of the world cinema, a man I venerate, and also daunted by the stark, brilliant, and austere nature of these capsules that fly across the room toward me in a continuum.
********
The poems in Walk with the Wind distill and deliver the world in the same ways Kiarostami's films do. After all, what is poetry but the ability to utter and share one's experience of the world? Time itself stops, and within it the Kiarostami moment begins and ends, like musical time, with its own measure. In film this sort of observation may be hampered by conventions of narrative, a beginning, an end, and characters. In this book of poetry, Kiarostami is not bound by these constraints. Sparse words are effortlessly wedded to the sensory world and result in brilliant illuminations. The ingredients are elemental: night, day, Spring, moonlight, violets, streams, butterfly, cherry blossoms, a snowflake, or a spider diligently weaving its web. Each poem is a journey that lasts a mere instant; in it we are momentary travelers and life itself is revealed to us.
The lyrical quality of Kiarostami's cinematic gaze carries over to these poems. The images are delicate and bold and acutely visual. Nature here is not imbued with mystical content; it is the poet's observation that yields nature's true essence. The seer and the seen become one.
From a crack in the ashen sky
a drop of light
falls
onto spring's first blossom.
******** The more I think
the less I understand
the reason
to fear death so much.
The first time I meet Mr. Kiarostami is 1977. I am his translator at the Telluride Film Festival. Taste of Cherry is showing, its first U.S. screening after it has received the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival. In the film a man is attempting to decide whether he should live or kill himself. Throughout the time he spends at the festival, Kiarostami is carrying with him a book of Khayyam's poems. He tells me he is reading it in preparation for his next film. He reads the Khayyam poems, and later, when some Italian guests at the Festival offer us a glass of wine, he reads it to them as well. The film will be The Wind Will Carry Us, in which Kiarostami quotes Khayyam directly. It is set in a far village, a world at once impenetrable, beautiful, and ordinary.
Omar Khayyam (1048-1123) is perhaps better known than some other of the extraordinary Persian poets in the West primarily because of the eloquent, if not always accurate, Edward Fitzgerald translations. Khayyam's poetry is about understanding mortality and the choices we make in the short span of our life.
Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn
I lean'd, the Secret of my Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd — "While you live,
"Drink! — for, once dead, you never shall return."
He proposes pleasure, not as a hedonist, in an "eat, drink, and be merry" sense. Rather, the choice is informed by the wise man's fatal knowledge of mortality and familiarity with death that colors every moment of the present life.
The title of the film The Wind Will Carry Us is that of a Forough Farrokhzad poem. Farrokhzad (1935-1967) and Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1980) are the twin foundations on which Iran's modern cultural and poetic sensibility is built. Both poets were acutely aware of sensory detail. Forough shook the Iranian world with her passionate verse. Sepehri, a painter and poet, wove a delicate and fragile tapestry of simple, tender, and vibrant colors. Where Is the House of the Friend is inspired by a Sepehri poem, and Kiarostami dedicates the film to him.
This is a translation of the Forough Farrokhzad poem:
In my small night, alas,
The wind has an appointment with the trees,
In my small night there is fear of devastation.
Listen.
Do you hear the dark wind whispering?
I look upon this bliss with alien eyes
I am addicted to my sorrow
Listen.
Do you hear the dark wind whispering?
Now something is happening in the night
The moon is red and agitated
And the roof may cave in at any moment.
The clouds have gathered like a bunch of mourners
And seem to be waiting for the moment of rain.
A moment
And after it, nothing.
Beyond this window the night trembles
And the earth
Will no longer turn.
Beyond this window an enigma worries for you and for me.
Oh you who are so verdant
Place your hands like a burning memory in my hands.
And leave your lips that are warm with life
To the loving caresses of my lips.
The wind will carry us away,
The wind will carry us away.
********
Kiarostami's poems are, however, not love poems. The most striking sentiment in them is an overwhelming sense of solitude.
I arrive alone
I drink alone
I laugh alone
I cry alone
I'm leaving alone.
The subject of Kiarostami's films has always been the collision of the individual and the world. The world in its manifestations remains other, and the protagonist alone must navigate it and make some sense of it. Then, in moments of grace, sometimes the otherness is dissolved. The first 132 poems of this collection consist of pristine observations of nature. This is not realism but brings to find the experience afforded to mystic visionaries. It is the expression of a gaze that is so intrinsically poetic as to eliminate all distance between the viewer and the object viewed. There is no sense of being inside or outside; the poet, the reader, and the subject become one. This is a celebration of life and its mysteries.
A parade of characters also are observed much in the same way as the natural elements. The characters appear as archetypes. While there is a thoughtful and penetrating gaze here, there is no direct emotional relationship in the poet's address. Nonetheless, the pervasive sentiment is not of joy but of loneliness, not of love or community but of isolation. There are peasants, nuns, workmen, a blind man, an old woman, an ugly woman, an unloved woman.
A pregnant woman
weeps silently
in a sleeping man's bed.
Or,
An exhausted traveler
on his way alone —
one parsang
from his destination.
The overriding solitude extends to the natural elements in these poems. However, in nature, there is beauty and serenity.
Autumn afternoon:
a sycamore leaf
falls softly
and rests
on its own shadow.
And hesitant exceptions to loneliness,
Yellow violets
violet violets
together
and apart.
And,
Two dragonflies, one male one female
pass in the air
among the oak trees
It is almost halfway through the book when the poet's address shifts from the third person to the first person. This marks the beginning of the group of the eight more or less consecutive poems that all begin with,
The more I think
the less I understand.
Over the course of the next 80 or so poems, the first-person voice intermittently expresses its solitude.
My shadow
keeps me company
this moonlit evening.
And finally there is one poem, and only one, which speaks of another. In Farsi this subject of address need not be identified as male or female. The pronoun is neutral. But the translated verse reads:
She said:
"I just can't"
I wish she had said:
"My heart won't let me."
The meditation on the world that the poet has developed up to this point has not addressed another. Here it becomes personal.
Sadly, it is also a moment when the translation by Karimi-Hakkak and Beard — distinguished scholars and brave men to have undertaken this most difficult task of which they avail themselves, generally speaking, most admirably — falls short. The simple beauty of the Farsi expression is lost. Nonetheless, the sense comes across, even if the ring of the poetry does not.
Yet even though there is heartache, desolation is offset by the staggering beauty of the world that has been constructed over the course of the previous poems. A universe of great beauty that is imperial. Those who inhabit it submit to its order. The poet observes this order painstakingly.
How merciful
That the turtle doesn't see
The little bird's effortless flight.
Or,
Nobody
can do anything
when the sky
decides to rain.
The poem that lends itself to the book's title comes toward the end of this section and near the end of the book. It is reminiscent of Pessoa's poems on Spring in its acute awareness of the poet's mortality.
I have come along with the wind,
on the first day of summer
the wind will carry me along
on the last day of fall.
********
"... his discourse is like a flower which crumbles away no sooner do you touch it, or like a chemical substance which evaporates the moment it comes into contact with a little heat."
— M. Mo'in [in an introduction to the work of
12th-century Islamic mystic Ruzbehan.]
While the traces may only be visible to a knowing eye, in his poems Kiarostami has married to his own unique visionary gaze to a centuries-old tradition of both Persian verse and of mysticism. Stylistically, he has found a form that matches the immediacy of his images. Emotionally, his sparse and thoughtful observations in this collection succeed in delivering a crystal ball in which we can gaze to see our world.
By Ata Servati
ISBN: 1-4134-5552-2
Hardcover, 2006
Ata Servati has written an interesting book that is well worth reading. It is not a conventional non-fiction book, as one might hope for in a biography. Yet, it is not an historical novel, though many will think it is closer to being that. Actually, it reads more like a movie script that floats over the action rather than being intimately involved in it. Who will be the actor that fleshes out the rash humanity of Howard Baskerville? Will it be Brad Pitt, Val Kilmer, or some brash newcomer? Perhaps it will be a movie someday, but in the meantime you can enjoy this book simply because it demonstrates how unclouded idealism can engender mutual respect among people.
Kami Evans Gives Graduates and Career Changers The Next Step
LONDON, March 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Author and consultant, Kami Naraghi Evans (http://www.kamievans.com), announces the launch of her book, The Next Step. Billed as 'A Guide to Professional Responsibility' and available from 29 March, the book ADVERTISEMENT
gives recent graduates and career changers a wealth of practical advice on how to realise their ideas and achieve success.
In the thought-provoking book, Naraghi Evans - who has successfully worked in international technology sector management consulting and training since 1995 - shares her experiences and gives examples of how to overcome limitations and fears to achieve a 'go getting' lifestyle.
The book gives readers advice on assessing their life, knowing their audience, investing in themselves, managing expectations, learning to fail, dealing with responsibility and authority, building influence, and putting plans into action - amongst other invaluable insights drawing from historical, economic, political, racial, ecological and medical concepts.
Naraghi Evans, author, comments: 'I wrote The Next Step to provide those who are venturing into fresh careers with a guide that tackles all the uncertainties they're likely to face. My aim is to communicate what to look out for in business and in life.'
She adds: 'The world can look rather limited to university leavers. However, anything is possible as long as you understand the rules and have a strategy to support your goals and reach for success.'
The business portal, Startups (http://www.statups.co.uk), described The Next Step as 'a great book for recent graduates and career changers that need a little guidance once entering the unfamiliar and intimidating working world'.
Naraghi Evans was interviewed at the NGR event on March 11th on which she gives her views about the transition from school to working life. The programme is to appear on ITV Meridian's in June 2005,
Naraghi Evans next event will be at the Royal Aeronautical Society on May 5th at 12:30PM sponsored by KCWC.
With a RRP of 7.99 GBP, The Next Step (ISBN 1412012686) can be bought on Amazon (http://www.amazon.co.uk) or from http://books.global-investor.com/books/.
Notes to Editors:
Kami Evans was born in New York City in 1970 to Persian parents. She received a BSc in Corporate Communications degree from Southern Connecticut State University in 1992. She then began a career in sales and business development before co-founding her first business, Newton Solutions, Inc., in 1997. The company provided interim managers and management consultants to Fortune 500 and FTSE (news) 100 companies and gave Kami a wealth of international business experience which she passes on to recent graduates and career changers in The Next Step.
Wednesday March 30, 08:01 AM
Kami Evans Gives Graduates and Career Changers The Next Step
LONDON, March 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Author and consultant, Kami Naraghi Evans (http://www.kamievans.com), announces the launch of her book, The Next Step. Billed as 'A Guide to Professional Responsibility' and available from 29 March, the book ADVERTISEMENT
gives recent graduates and career changers a wealth of practical advice on how to realise their ideas and achieve success.
In the thought-provoking book, Naraghi Evans - who has successfully worked in international technology sector management consulting and training since 1995 - shares her experiences and gives examples of how to overcome limitations and fears to achieve a 'go getting' lifestyle.
The book gives readers advice on assessing their life, knowing their audience, investing in themselves, managing expectations, learning to fail, dealing with responsibility and authority, building influence, and putting plans into action - amongst other invaluable insights drawing from historical, economic, political, racial, ecological and medical concepts.
Naraghi Evans, author, comments: 'I wrote The Next Step to provide those who are venturing into fresh careers with a guide that tackles all the uncertainties they're likely to face. My aim is to communicate what to look out for in business and in life.'
She adds: 'The world can look rather limited to university leavers. However, anything is possible as long as you understand the rules and have a strategy to support your goals and reach for success.'
The business portal, Startups (http://www.statups.co.uk), described The Next Step as 'a great book for recent graduates and career changers that need a little guidance once entering the unfamiliar and intimidating working world'.
Naraghi Evans was interviewed at the NGR event on March 11th on which she gives her views about the transition from school to working life. The programme is to appear on ITV Meridian's in June 2005,
Naraghi Evans next event will be at the Royal Aeronautical Society on May 5th at 12:30PM sponsored by KCWC.
With a RRP of 7.99 GBP, The Next Step (ISBN 1412012686) can be bought on Amazon (http://www.amazon.co.uk) or from http://books.global-investor.com/books/.
Notes to Editors:
Kami Evans was born in New York City in 1970 to Persian parents. She received a BSc in Corporate Communications degree from Southern Connecticut State University in 1992. She then began a career in sales and business development before co-founding her first business, Newton Solutions, Inc., in 1997. The company provided interim managers and management consultants to Fortune 500 and FTSE (news) 100 companies and gave Kami a wealth of international business experience which she passes on to recent graduates and career changers in The Next Step.
Reply 
It is April 2000. Abbas Kiarostami is being given the Akira Kurosawa Lifetime Achievement Award by the San Francisco Film Festival. He has a heavy schedule of interviews. He has just returned from Uganda, where in March, at the request of the U.N. he made ABC Africa, a documentary about children orphaned by the AIDS crisis. Characteristically the focus of his gaze shifted away from death and desolation. All he can talk of is the spirited life force that was present amid the poverty and ravages of the country he has just returned from. He speaks of the beauty and majesty of the men and women he's met. He says that if he were ever to abandon his home in Iran, he would seek to become a citizen of Africa because he has never seen the will to live present in so vibrant, forceful, and unabashed a manner; he says he has never known a people so gracious.
The more I think
Kiarostami's poems are, however, not love poems. The most striking sentiment in them is an overwhelming sense of solitude.