Urdu is a rich, descriptive language, full of metaphors and symbolism, where a single word or phrase can have multiple meanings according to its usage. In this poem, Sara Shagufta uses the phrase ‘second cliff’’ to reflect on the luxury of looking back as a woman and owning one’s life experience. She uses taunt and precise imagery to take the reader through the process of aging, self-reflection, nostalgia, regret, and most importantly, self-actualization. As a translator, I have attempted to recreate the dynamism and urgency of Sara Shagufta’s original verse as she reimagines the different stages of a woman's life, such as marriage, motherhood, and menopause.
Sabyn Javeri on "The Second Cliff" |
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Brian Dillon Reviews Michel Chaouli's Something Speaks to Me
"I am unsure about productivity, as I am uncertain about the urgency to speak about the images I love or words that I cannot forget. To write about these things does not feel to me like a rush to inform or communicate but instead like a desire to invent something alongside. To brush up against the work rather than importune it."
viaTHE YALE REVIEW |
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What Sparks Poetry:
Jonathan Skinner on "Unfolder"
"I suppose the poem downplays metamorphosis, and all its metaphorical associations, compressing the monarch’s ontogeny, from egg to larva or caterpillar molting through its instars eating their own shed skin to pupal stage with its cremaster to chrysalis and finally butterfly, into one stanza, like those time-lapse photography films we all watched in school. Instead, 'Unfolder' dilates on the risky moment of sexual encounter. " |
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