A Feather by Shakila Azizzada

DUAL Poetry Podcast

This week's poem is by Shakila Azizzada from Afghanistan. The poem is read first in English translation by Mimi Khalvati and then in Dari by Shakila herself.

Shakila has spent many years in the Netherlands and her poetry reflects both her Afghan heritage and her European influences. She also writes in Dutch and translates her own poetry both ways. She is a very musical poet, tender and intimate, but also uncompromising in her political poems, and sometimes surreal – a poet of range and courage. Many of the poems, or parts of them, were relatively straightforward to translate and, perhaps because of the European influence, seemed to slip happily into English. Shakila’s voice is not as adorned as some poetry in Farsi that I have read, and is idiomatic and sometimes humorous or satiric. I speak colloquial Farsi and this of course was a great help as, with Zuzanna’s help, I could understand most of the original. Zuzanna also recorded a tape for me of the poems we were working on and this, more than anything else, helped me to try and find equivalent idioms while replicating the musical phrases.

If you would like to take part in the PTC workshop survey mentioned in the podcast introduction, please follow this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdVydXD-N6nP-hSiZ7QYKAjWrJqCukmeQQPxcHWk_HPwZ8bDA/viewform

The Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week. Please take a moment to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you download.