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Nazand Begikhani
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Nazand Begikhani
Nazand Begikhani is from Kurdistan (Iraq). She has been living in exile (Denmark, France and UK) since 1987. She took her first degree in English language and literature, then completed an MA and Ph.D in comparative literature at the Sorbonne University.
She has published three poetry collections in Kurdish and Bells of Speech is her first anthology in English. Her collected poetry works is under publication by a leading publisher in Iraqi Kurdistan Region, Ranj (forthcoming Autumn 2007)
UK poet of Pakistani origin, Moniza Alvi, wrote on Nazand Begikhani and her English collection Bells of Speech:
“With Bells of Speech Ambit’s fine new series introduces readers in Britain to a remarkable voice. Nazand Begikhani explores the experience of being an exiled Kurdish woman in visionary poems of rare political and spiritual depth. Like bells, they sound clear musical notes and linger in the mind long after they have first been heard. Fully cognisant of that “thin line between life and death”, they are poignant, but ultimately life-enhancing.”
Nazand is a polyglot and translates her own poetry into French and English. Many of Nazand’s poems are published in French, Arabic, Persian and English. Her poems in English have been published in several well-known poetry magazines including Poetry Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, poetry Salzburg Review and Ambit. She is also a translator from French and English into Kurdish; she translated Baudelaire and T. S Eliot into Kurdish.
Apart from writing poetry, Nazand is an active researcher and advocate for women’s human rights. She is a founding member of the network organisation Kurdish Women Action against Honour Killing (KWAHK), which was incorporated later into a wider organisation, Kurdish Women’s Rights Watch (KWRW)
Bells of Speech has been very well received in the UK. Following its publication Nazand was invited to participate and read her poems on the flagship Radio 4 programme, Start the Week, presented by Andrew Marr, which was broadcast on Christmas Day 2006. On May 14th 2007, MP Ann Clwyd hosted a reception of Bells of Speech at the House of Parliament where Nazand read her poems to a number of literary figures, MPs, media representatives and foreign diplomats.
Also, one of the poems in the collection, Voice, has been selected by the British art critique, Sister Wendy Beckett, for an anthology of 40 inspiring poems in English, called “ Inspired Verse” by Wyndham Thomas (Corsham Print, Easter 2007). Wendy Beckett wrote in her introduction to the anthology: “Nazand devotes herself to seeking justice for Kurdish people and all who are persecuted. She believes happiness in our right, and sings of it with wistful certainty”
Hide and Seek in Bergalu
A fresh summer morning
on the lower slopes of Bergalu village
two children played hide and seek
women planted trees in their garden
When a warplane roared in
rushed us face-down to the land
After four heavy circles
and a shower of shells
a thick line of smoke
billowed from the land
Eighteen years on
on the lower slopes of a village
an old woman can be seen
circling around an empty hole
chasing the shadow of two children
playing hide and seek in Bergalu
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God is not dead for my mother
“Truth is an illusion”
said Netsche
For my mother who has never been to school
truth is standing up calmly
after a deluge
planting a garden
with hands of serenity
speaking the language of trees
and understanding the alphabet of rain
For my mother truth is
to read the silence of my brothers’ faces
as they lie in stone
and to see in the blueness of the sky
a plum of light tracing a path
a divine path stretching deep
beyond the cloud and the stars
when you can trace the white wings of your dead children
flying over the path of light in the azure of the sky
you need God to survive
you don’t need God to die
-----------------------------------------
At a happiness symposium in Wales
A psychologist said
Graveyards may help you feel happier,
visit a graveyard when you are depressed
There is a thin line between life and death, my friend
and I am a graveyard
I am happy to be alive, my friend
After Halabja and Anfal
I am happy to become the voice
of a land
that contains the mass graves of our brothers
There is a thin line between life and death, my friend
There is a thin line between life and death
-----------------------------------------
Calm
Let’s lay down
Close our eyes
And listen to the music of the sun
To the grass singing
Let words have a rest
And speech a little siesta
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Ghazu
To the widows of Anfal
Words started out from the sacred books
Meaning started out from the bright words
Voice started out from the hidden meaning
The voice of rage, voice of wretched conquest
It blew Ahnfal
Ah n f a l, Ah n f a l
A: is arson, the furious fire
The crackling of the children’s souls
scorching of mothers’ hearts
the echo of the Fall of lives
H: is a howl
A scream of a butterfly
One hundred and eighty two thousand colourful butterflies
in the storm of pain
and the hurricane of death
N: is Nur, the Holy light
A prophetic beam
tiptoeing aggressively
It folds into our days
brings a desert
Pouring sands of Ghazu into the eyes of our springs
F: is a flame in a lantern
A lantern of waiting
glowing blue
in the hand of a saintly woman
a widow, of 16 years old
on the steps of loneliness
A: is anticipation
A hope of returning
towards the celebration of colour
A gracious hope
to illuminate huge in their lives
to reclaim lost years
and reconcile with life
L: our luminous vision blurred
wrapping us in mist
leaving us lacerated on the edge of Holy Books.
Ahnfal Ahnfal
A voice blew, the voice of wretched conquest
Voice of desert storms and
tempest of Fall
It blew a voice
a voice of rage, a voice of wrath
It blew Ahnfal.
My mother on the steps of waiting
counting her prayer beads
weaving the necklace of hope
when the body of her son
fell into her arms
Ahnfal Ahnfal
It blew a voice
voice of wrath, voice of conquest
Conquest of garden,
Conquest of colour
Conquest of flight
Howls pour from the silence of waiting
no one dares say, “They are dead.”
It has been 13 years that
my mother has carried the lantern of waiting
on the step of loneliness
Weaving an encounter with her youngest son
Lanterns of waiting
in the hands of 50 thousand widows
in the narrow lanes of hope
The lanterns of waiting
are glowing blue
glowing blue
The lanterns of waiting.
-----------------------------------------
© 2006, Nazand Begikhani
From: Bells of Speech
Publisher: Ambit Books, London, 2006
ISBN: 978-0-900055-11-
For more information on Nazand Begikhani and her poetry see the following links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazand_Begikhani
http://eustonmanifesto.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_
content&task=view&id=126&Itemid=1
http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/issue.asp?id=448
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/starttheweek_20061225.shtml
http://krg.org/articles/detail.asp?rnr=73&lngnr=12&anr=11507
&smap=02010200
http://krg.org/articles/detail.asp?lngnr=12&smap=02010100&rnr=
223&anr=17929
http://uk.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.
php?obj_id=9763&x=1
