CLIO TALKS BACK: Meet ‘A’isha Taymur, a great Muslim poet in nineteenth-century Cairo

A'isha Taymur

To honor the launch of Muslima: Muslim Women's Art & Voices and Women’s History Month, Clio proposes the story of a young Turkish/Egyptian girl, the eldest of three daughters, who became a famous poet. A’isha Taymur (1840-1902) here talks about her early educational experiences and about her understanding father’s role in helping her transcend stereotypical female constraint.

When my mind was ready to develop . . . , my mother, the goddess of compassion and virtue and the treasure of knowledge and experience, brought the tools of weaving and embroidery and exerted herself in teaching me. She explained things clearly and cleverly, but I was not receptive. I was not willing to improve in the feminine occupations. I used to flee from her like a prey seeking to escape the net.

[At the same time], I used to look forward to attending the gatherings of prominent writers without any awkwardness. I found the sound of the pen on paper to be the most beautiful, and I became convinced that membership in that profession was the most abundant blessing. To satisfy my longing, I would collect any sheets of paper and small pens. Then, I would go someplace away from all and imitate the writers as they scribbled. Hearing that sound was very enjoyable. When my mother would find me out, she would scold me and threaten me. This only increased my rejection of embroidery and did not improve my skills.

Even though I was genuinely inclined to [literate]learning, I also tried to get my mother’s approval. But I continued to dislike the feminine occupations. I used to go out to the reception hall (slamlik), past the writers who were there to listen to their melodious verse. My mother – may God rest her in the heavenly gardens – was hurt by my actions. She would reprimand, threaten, warn, and promise to punish. She also appealed to me with friendly promises of jewelry and pretty costumes.

[Finally], my father reasoned with her, quoting the Turkish poet who said: “The heart is not led, through force, to the desired path. So do not torment another soul if you can spare it!” He also cautioned: “Beware of breaking the heart of this young girl and tainting her purity with violence. If our daughter is inclined to the pen and paper, do not obstruct her desire.”

“Let us share our daughters: You take ‘Afat and give me ‘Asmat [another of ‘A’isha’s names]. If I make a writer out of ‘Asmat, then this will bring me mercy after my death.” My father then said: “Come with me ‘Asmat. Starting tomorrow I will bring you two instructors who will teach you Turkish, Persian, fiqh (jurisprudence), and Arabic grammar. Do well in your studies and follow what I instruct you to do, and beeware of making me ashamed before your mother.”

Source: As translated from A’isha Taymur, Nata’ij al’ahwal fi al’aqwal wa al’af’ al [The Results of Circumstances in Statements and Deeds] (Cairo, 1887). Published in Mervat Hatem’s article, ‘A’isha Taymur’s Tears and the Critique of the Modernist and the Feminist Discourses on Nineteenth-Century Egypt,” in Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, ed. Lila Abu-Lughod (Princeton, 1998), pp. 76-77.

Overcoming Adversity with Poetry

Image courtesy of Akili Amina

The power of the spoken word has the potential to change the flow of everything. You possess this voice, this power. You are more than capable of inspiring, motivating, and changing the world around you. It comes from within; use the facts, your drive, your love, to fuel your words to stimulate you and those around you. It can happen anywhere.

You have a choice to say something significant, worthwhile, and remarkable. You have a choice to wake up and say that today will be a great day; those words will set forth a chain of favourable energy, it's your job to follow through with action. As directors of our own film, every day--whether conscious or subconsciously--we create our own reality. Words can be like a double edged sword piercing through the heart of an individual or they can be a way that we heal ourselves and those around us.

Personally, words--in the form of poetry--were a way for me to express my thoughts, struggles and triumphs during my years of living on the streets. I have a great respect and admiration for poets and spoken word artists.

It was with great delight to stumble upon the words of poet and writer Akili Amina. The following is an interview that first appeared in Issue One of KULCHA Magazine, that I published last month.

Simba: What is your latest poem? 

Akili: My latest poem is called I Rise. It is a poem about the atrocities we as humans face in society and it was a way of expressing my angst and anger that day. I write usually upon whatever emotion or experience that is in the forefront of my consciousness. If I wrote today it would be about the pain and loss that I have suffered recently and how I aspire to look over my shoulder in triumph after reaching the peak of my mountain of adversities.

With my right fist up, I rise
In spite of the undercover genocide done in broad daylight
With all internal eyes closed and sealed by mass mind control
Or with blank stares watching the tormented souls descending earth in mid-air
With my right fist up, I rise
Remembering the afros and dashikis
They are the symbols of our solidarity
We are losing all ciphers that we were, that we are, that we be!
The Diasporas children bore with gritted teeth
The chains, the hangings, the hoses, and they live in the resource-less communities
And they are spilling into the overcrowded prisons of our country
And this is one of our newest industries
Build More!
Build More!
Privatized penitentiaries are scanning human barcodes
No jobs plus no food minus education equals greater risk to be taken
With my right fist up, I rise
We are the 99%, but we are also the 10!
And steadily disappearing, but a thanks goes to the motherland children
And none goes to those who put a gun to the heads of their kin and their brethren
With my right fist up, I rise
Drug war zones financed by dirty execs that only represent personal greed and power
And this is everywhere in all the nations and in all the poor populations around the globe
They are turning their heads to all the crime in the cities so they can’t see
While they are sitting high in the penthouse living counting all their money
With my right fist up, I rise
In honor of all children who suffered sexual abuse and to all who are incest victims
The numbers are climbing, the numbers are climbing, and the numbers are climbing
And the pain stalks them for the rest of their lives
It will always be right there to remind them that they are not worthy
Or constantly asking themselves why did this happen to me?
But regardless of their misguided philosophies
They should know that they survived
And you survived
And I survived
And I rise to tell my story
And I rise to remind us of our history
And I rise to share my view
And I rise to share our glory
With my right- fist- up!

S: How long have you been writing? 

A: I began writing my poems around May or June of 2008. It was because all of my children left as they were grown and began their own lives. I was left with an empty nest and my thoughts. I began to put them on paper and eventually poem after poem started to flow through me, so I wanted to share them. I started my blog Poetic Dream around that time.

S: Besides poetry do you also write books? If so, what was your latest book?

A: I have written two self published books, both on poetry. One I wrote with a very good, poetic friend from California named Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti. You should check out her blog, she is very gifted. Our book was asking for peace in the civil unrest regions of Africa with a interview done by me asking eye opening questions to a political student aspiring African politician.

S: How has your life experience led into your writing?

A: I think writing found me. I noticed some years back that I talked in metaphors whenever I hold conversations bits and pieces of my statements would go great in a poem. I began to want to hold them as if they were a gift from the Universe to me, so I began to write. I have to say thought because of life and the issues we all face I went back and forth.

S: What authors do you admire and why?

A: I love Patricia Smith because of her rawness. I love Charles Bukowski because of his ability to take a simple moment in life and use the medium of poetry and make it art. I love Langston Hughes because he was my first. I was only in the fifth grade when I carried his poetry book next to my bosom for weeks until the librarian explained I couldn't check it out anymore. "My soul has grown deep like the rivers."

S: What other arts do you follow and enjoy?

A: I love, love, love museums! When I lived very close to the DC Metro area, I would spend hours looking at the art in the museums. Some even let you take photos although I am very amateurish. It was the highlight of my life just to walk around museums and look at photography, surrealist sculptures and paintings (my fave), and for some odd reason I like the sounds of the shoes and the low mumble of people talking. Go figure. (smiles)

S: What is the message that you hope to convey in your work?

A: I want to convey love, life, humanity, hope, courage, and overall respect for the art of poetry. I want to learn the craft one day that I have a command of it. I know that I am a baby in the nursery of poetic feats, but I am ready and very very willing to learn. I will continue to take poetry workshops and read poetry writing books on my kindle and mobile device all in respect of the craft.

S: A sentence of advice for aspiring authors?

A: I would advise them to digest the work of others, while staying true to your own style. I would advise them to never get discouraged by the no's you will receive when you are trying to get published. If you are steady on your course, you will win.

Thanks for Akili Amina for sharing her thoughts and story. You can view more of Akili's words and inspiration on her blog at http://akiliamina.blogspot.com/.

Valzhyna Mort: How Can This Exist on Earth?

Valzhyna Mort from Laura Hope-Gill on Vimeo.

In this month’s issue of Poetry Magazine, I stumbled across a name I couldn’t even attempt to pronounce. While this may not seem like a notable occasion, in a magazine known as “the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world,” running across a name so unabashedly un-Anglicized is reason to take note. Besides an annual translation issue, the magazine doesn’t deal much outside of the English language. When it does, it indicates that the artist in question is someone who has truly transcended country borders in order to garner international attention.

The poet--Valzhyna Mort--was born and raised in Belarus but is currently living in D.C., according to her Poetry Foundation biography. Her biography also confirmed my suspicions of Mort being an international sensation, though it at the same time suggested her unwavering nationalism. Though Mort has released acclaimed works in many individual countries, she continues to compose all of her poems in her native Belarusian in an attempt to revive and preserve the language.

A little bit more digging revealed that Mort is truly an electrifying poet, in almost every way that the word can be used. Her infamous readings are rivaled only by her equally enthralling subject matter. Though Mort, unlike Anjuman, doesn’t seem too worried about preserving the beauty of her language, what her work in translation does betray is a palpable effort to maintain a certain rawness, a plain-style sincerity that ensures her troubling and often disturbing imagery is maintained:

“even our mothers have no idea how we were born
how we parted their legs and crawled out into the world
the way you crawl from the ruins after a bombing
we couldn’t tell which of us was a girl or a boy
we gorged on dirt thinking it was bread
and our future
a gymnast on a thin thread of the horizon
was performing there
at the highest pitch
bitch”

--From Belarusian

In just a few words, Mort communicates the poverty, helplessness, and abject hopelessness that pervaded her generation and her country. Her intricate and bizarre imagery reinforces the other-worldliness of their situation, asking always: how is it possible that these conditions could exist on earth? With all her travel and success and ascension into high-brow literary circles, it is remarkable that she has not stopped asking this question. It makes our inability--or perhaps refusal--to answer that much more palpable.

Watch Mort read part of Belarusian in the video above.

[Valzhyna Mort at the Poetry Foundation]

[Valzhyna Mort]

Not Lost in Translation: The Honesty of Afghanistan's Nadia Anjuman

Perhaps a product of the human rights spotlight that was placed on the Middle East post 9/11, there are undoubtedly a slew of adjectives that come to mind when one hears the identifier “Afghan woman.” I’m willing to bet that “poet” is not one of them.

Yet poetry--preserved and passed on mainly through an equally rich oral tradition--has a deep and rich history in Afghanistan, particularly among women. The tradition was spearheaded by the ancient Queen Gowhar Shad, a woman who is largely credited with prompting the country’s fifteenth century cultural renaissance.

During the rule of the Taliban, the title of “poet” was one that women were forced to bear secretly, and even this was a very brave move. In the early 2000’s, a young woman by the name of Nadia Anjuman risked public execution in order to continue her writing. She was widely regarded as the foremost up and coming poet in the country and one look at her work explains why. Though a poet’s mastery of his or her native language is often lost in translation, Anjuman’s poems retain a beauty that is
striking in its ease:

The sound of green footsteps is the rain.
They’re coming in from the road, now,
Thirsty souls and dusty skirts brought from the desert,
Their breath burning, mirage-mingled,
Mouths dry and caked with dust.
They’re coming in from the road, now,
Tormented, girls brought up on pain,
Joy departed from their faces,
Hearts old and lined with cracks.
- From “Voiceless Cries,” July/August 2002

Yet even more striking than her language is her subject matter. Anjuman wrote with a level of honesty and directness that was unheard of among her ancient predecessors--with a level of youthful fearlessness that is breathtaking, and perhaps could only come from a generation that had experienced globalization and rapid technological progress. With what can only be imagined as an extremely slight taste of freedom, Anjuman’s voice emerged as a strong indictment of her society’s oppression. With all of this in mind, her strength of conviction is truly awe-inspiring. Her first collection, “Dark Flower,” was reprinted three times and sold over 3,000 copies.

Many would argue that this conviction is what led to her death. In 2005, Anjuman died of injuries sustained to the head after a late-night fight with her husband.

Though there are many things to admire about Nadia’s work, what I find most compelling and promising is its bravery and its honesty. She was not afraid to speak about the injustices that the women of her country faced. Even more compelling than this was the pure and unedited emotional response these injustices provoked in her. This is where I think the potential of Nadia’s work to create change ultimately lies.

There are many, many things that become lost during times of war; it was only during a relative time of peace that Nadia felt safe enough to release her work into the outside world. I wonder: how many other voices, as clear and beautiful and promising as this one, are being stifled every day?

To learn more about Nadia and the poetry tradition in Afghanistan, pick up a copy of Land of the Unconquerable: The Lives of Contemporary Afghan Women and see the essay by Zuzanna Olszewska entitled “A Hidden Discourse.” Or better yet, attend IMOW’s event on July 27th that is centered around this collection of essays and which will feature editor Ashraf Zahedi and contributor Amina Kator. More information about that event can be found here.

Land of the Unconquerable: The Lives of Contemporary Afghan Women Ed. Ashraf Zahedi and Jennifer Heath [UC Press]
The Defiant Poet's Society [The Sunday Times Online]

Words of Hatred, Words of Healing: Re-forming our Political Discourse

[Editor's Note: Please welcome our newest contributor, Caitlin Reyes Brune! This is Caitlin's first post for Her Blueprint. To find out more about Caitlin, visit our Contributor's page.]

"...What if the mightiest word is love?
Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,
praise song for walking forward in that light."

(from Praise Song for the Day, written and spoken by poet Elizabeth Alexander at the inauguration of US President Barack Obama, 20 January 2009 and subsequently published in Crave Radiance, a collection of new and previously published poems, pp. 247-248)

As Saturday’s news of the cold-blooded, brutal shooting of US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and a score of others reverberated around the vast space of digital media, I brooded ruefully about the state of political discourse. How, rather than embracing the “sharp sparkle” and “widening pool of light” that poet Elizabeth Alexander invoked and that so many Americans experienced so palpably on that crisp January morning in 2009, had we managed to regress into the worst kind of darkness imaginable: that which prompts one human being to irrevocably disregard the humanity of another?