Poetry
"Nazand Begikhani’s poetry is a powerful voice of exile, resilience and hope. Writing in Kurdish, English and French, she weaves personal loss with collective memory, transforming trauma into art and silence into song. Her verses illuminate the struggles of women, the wounds of war and the unyielding strength of the human spirit, offering readers both solace and inspiration." Raman Review
This is a selection of Nazand's poetry. To read more click here:
An Ordinary Day
Selected by Forward Book of Poetry Prize as one of the best poems of the year
The security officer
got up early
put on his white shirt
had honey toast with nuts
kissed his three children
hugged his wife passionately
and left for work
At his desk
sat ten files
of ten men to be shot
He signed them
while drinking mint tea.
At ten o’clock
he ordered the shooting
got angry over a gunman who missed his target
Taking out his pistol
he fired at the missed target ten times
Before the end of his shift
he visited the mothers of the ten shot men
ordered each to pay 100 dinars
for the cost of the bullets that killed their sons
In the evening
he celebrated his brother’s birthday
At night on the surface of a mirror
he saw a drop of blood trickling down to his feet
He tried to wash it
the trickle rose to his chest
Where does the difference lie between the killer and killed?
©Nazand Begikhani
Ghazu
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[1] 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
* Ghazu is an Arabic word which means conquest.
** Ahnfal (transcribed from Kurdish. In Arabic it is written Anfal) is word from the Holy Book Quran. It means pillaging and sacking the “infidels”. It was given as the name to the genocidal campaign carried out by Saddam Hussein’s army against Kurdish civilians at the end of the 80s. There are more than 50.000 widows of Anfal in Iraqi Kurdistan who still wait for their deported beloved to come back.
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.
Washington, Autumn 2000Translated from Kurdish by the author with the help of Richard McKane and Moniza Alvi. Published by Poetry Salzburg Review, No 8, 2005.
Fireworks
To John
The night is overflowing
The city centre radiant like an illuminated valley
And the trees full of music
And the streets a river of human beings
They dance, they laugh
And in the middle
The fountain is rising proudly
To embrace the air
The enchanted gaze of the moon
And the timid smile of the stars
And they keep dancing
And they keep singing
Suddenly midnight falls with orange sounds
And a mountain of ho ha
The sparkburst of fire works
Rains in volcanic lines
C’est le 14 juillet
La célébration de la révolution française
And in a corner of a little room
I am crawling full of shivering
My eyes closed
My hands on my ears
To avoid hearing
The echo of the past
To avoid living
The memory of the war
With the sounds of the bombs
In Koysinjak
Falling over my childhood
©Nazand Begikhani