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Rosa Jamali

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She studied Drama at the Tehran University of Art; later she received an MA degree in English Literature from Tehran University. Poetry This Dead Body Is Not An Apple, It’s Either A Cucumber Or A Pear, (1997) Making A Face, (1998) Making Coffee To Run A Crime Story, (2002) The Hourglass is Fast Asleep,(2011) Highways Blocked, (2014) Here Gravity is Less(2019) Plays The Shadow (2007) Translations Edge, World Poetry in Persian The House of The Edrisis, a novel by Ghazaleh Alizadeh (translated from original Persian to English), Karma Books, New York

Her debut collection of poems, “This Dead Body is Not an Apple, It Is Either a Cucumber or a Pear”, was published in 1997 and announced a major new voice in Iranian poetry. The book opened Persian poetry to new creative possibilities. That same year her second collection of poems “Making a Face” was published and well-received by critics. This collection, with its stream-of-consciousness narrative poems, merged different types of discourses and registers – sometimes archaic, sometimes colloquial, written, formal, informal, journalistic, scientific. Jamali adapted a kind of music from classical Persian poetry and imbued it with the natural cadences of speech, juxtaposing long and short sentences, infusing the whole with her bitter and distinctive sense of humour. Her third collection “Making Coffee To Run a Crime Story” was partly inspired by Sadegh Hedayat’s Blind Owl. Her most recent books are “The Hourglass is Fast Asleep” and “Highways Blocked”, which have been mentioned for combining present-day setting with the myths and themes of Persian mystics. According to a Persian poetry critic, she has perceived new landscapes in a kind of imagery and as Britannica says she has experimented new styles of expression in Persian poetry.

Poetry

This Dead Body Is Not An Apple, It’s Either A Cucumber Or A Pear, (1997)

Making A Face, (1998)

Making Coffee To Run A Crime Story, (2002)

The Hourglass is Fast Asleep,(2011)

Highways Blocked, (2014)

Here Gravity is Less(2019)

Plays

The Shadow (2007)

Translations

Edge, World Poetry in Persian

The House of The Edrisis, a novel by Ghazaleh Alizadeh (translated from original Persian to English), Karma Books, New York

WE HAVE JUST RECEIVED SOME PIECES OF NEWS

HORRIBLE

NIGHTMARISH

FROM A SEISMOGRAPHY CENTRE

EARTHQUAKE IT WAS

QUAKE

TOOK PLACE!

THE ROUTE HAS BEEN DIVIDED

ON THE OIL FIELDS

AIR SATELLITES

OVER THIS MERIDIAN

THIS VERY TIME ZONE 

FREE ZONE

HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED

REMOVED FROM THE MAP

OMITTED FROM THE HISTORY

BANISHED

UNKNOWN NETWORK

INVISIBLE LETTERS.

THEY WILL BROADCAST ONE DAY

SOME TRACES OF LIFE 

HAS BEEN SEEN

HERE IN THIS REGION

YOUR PULSES BEAT 

AS

OUR PULSES

BEAT!

CAN’T YOU ERASE OUR NAMES FROM THE OIL FIELDS?

DO NOT ADJUST YOUR CLOCK

WITH THIS PARTICULAR TIME ZONE!

MORSE CODES

TURNING AND TURNING

LIKE A PRISM THROUGH THE TIME

RETURNED THE TIME PAST

HAS BEEN TAKEN OUT

FROM THE SPINAL CORD

SHALL WE WALK BACK?

THESE BLIND BOUNDARIES

BERMUDA TRIANGLE

I WILL SEND YOU A LETTER IN CAPITAL LETTERS

FULL OF PASSWORDS 

THIS EVENING AND THIS SUNSET

IT’S GONNA BE FORGOTTEN

PRETTY SOON.

A CUBIC EXILE!

MYSTIC CODES

HAVE DISTORTED THE LINES,… 

And the Sun was in My Handbag

Rosa Jamali

Translated from Persian to English by Babak Mazloumi

And the Sun was in my handbag

And the world felt heavy on my bruised hands

Where our bodies merged ever since

And I had devoured the blind branches

As if your crimson gold had poured over me

And I was wildlife

And my voice was your silent arrow in the echo of my voice.

Shrieking like a Banshee…

It is me who has run in the branches

Has lived in you like a termite

And has joined wildlife.

Two Black Buttons

My eyes are used to the dark mood

For I have sewed two black buttons into my eye SOCKETS 

And you are gonna touch me

In this Bleak House

All over the blackness…

The Flintstone

Block No.1:

A whole nation has created the kindling

Which owes you desperately

But it hasn’t been specified

Whether it’s the flint stone

Or A fire storm?

Block No.2:

A piece of my happiness is in debt with the flint stone

You’ve turned to the rocks

But it’s for the flint stone.

Block No.3:

I’m in debt with the flint stone

The whole world is in debt with the flint stone

Block No.4:

It has cast a spell

For all your desires

Behind the railing.

Block No.5:

I’m the mother of this flint stone

I’ve nourished it

I’ve shed tears on it

If the world is on fire

I’m the one to blame.

Block No.6:

I’ve betrayed the heaven above

God is disabled by it.

Block No.7:

And since then people have taken the vow of silence, …

‘Dating Noah’s Son’/ ‘Making coffee to Run a Crime Story’ / Translated from Original Persian to English by the Author: Rosa Jamali

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