Desire Poems by Women Poets
Taking thematic inspiration from Diana Bellessi’s book ‘To Love A Woman’ this week’s podcast plays you four poems about desire written by female poets.
Taking thematic inspiration from Diana Bellessi’s book ‘To Love A Woman’ this week’s podcast plays you four poems about desire written by female poets.
To close up 2021 a poetry collection of the 30th parallel north, featuring poems from the PTC audio archive from Mexico, Morocco, Iran, Afghanistan and China.
Five Afghan poems from the PTC archive, all of these poems are in English and Dari, the regional variation of Persian that has developed in that part of the world.
Two Dari poems by Afghan poet Shakila Azizzada whose work brings together Persian and Western poetry traditions, translated by Zuzanna Olszewska with Mimi Khalvati.
Two poets writing in Dari and Farsi who use narrative in their work one is a fairy tale complete with daemons and the other is a sketch of the life of an economic migrant.
Huerta’s poems frequently turn on images that are experiences in themselves. In this eerie piece, he describes a poem by Gottfried Benn. Translated by Tom Boll and Katherine Pierpoint.
This week, to celebrate Nowrus, our poem is ‘Haft Seen’ by Shakila Azizzada from Afghanistan. The poem is read first in English by Mimi Khalvati and then in Dari by Shakila Azizzada.
‘The Bridal Veil’ by Shakila Azizzada, was translated by Zuzanna Olszewska and Mimi Khalvati. The poem is read in English by Mimi Khalvati and then in Dari by Shakila herself.
Listen to ‘Cat Lying in Wait’ by Shakila Azizzada from Afghanistan. The poem is read first in English translation by Mimi Khalvati and then in Dari by Shakila herself. #PoetryAndChill
Yalda is an Iranian celebration of the longest night of the year on the winter solstice on the 21st of December. Yalda is a loanword imported into Persian from Syriac originally meaning birth.
Listen to ‘The Bridal Veil’ by Shakila Azizzada, translated by Mimi Khalvati and Zuzanna Olszewska. Shakila Azizzada is a very musical poet, tender and intimate, but also uncompromising in her political poems.