—

Hafez says:

گفتگوهاست در این راه که جان بگدازد

هرکسی عربده ای این که مبین آن که مپرس

Along this road are conversations enough to consume the soul
Each with his own outcry: look not at this, ask not of that.

What are these conversations that consume the soul? What are they about? And why is the poet forbidden from engaging in them? Amid this space of uproar, where one voice cries, “Do not look at this,” and another, “Do not ask about that,” upon what path was the poet traveling? What course had he chosen?

Every conversation—even a conversation with oneself—is an answer to a question. Indeed, every non-interrogative sentence in Hafez’s poetry is itself an answer to a question that has been omitted beforehand: an unwritten sentence, a silent proposition—if it may even be called a proposition—that never appears explicitly in his verse. How does Hafez communicate these questions and answers to us? By what language does he set down this endless dialogue in taḥrīr (تحریر ) a word meaning both “writing” and “liberation”?

The question at stake here concerns the how of enunciation — the modes through which speech becomes possible within a space defined by clamor and uproar. This space of uproar (عربده) may be read as a discursive field saturated by repressing formations: by discourse regimes that foreclose thought, and by the material apparatuses that have suppressed speaking, the fearless drinking of wine (می دلیر) and the act of questioning. Such a discursive setting demanded speech that was “few in words”, yet “abundant in meaning.” This could only be achieved if speech remained veiled (سربسته):

سخن سربسته گفتی با حریفان

خدا را زین معما پرده بردار

You spoke in veiled words to your opponents
For God’s sake, lift the veil from this riddle.

But what does this veiledness mean? What kind of concealment is this, when, in the poet’s own lifetime, “...the assemblies of kings lacked adornment without the delightful anecdotes of his speech; the revelry of drunkards found no excitement without it; and the songs of wine-drinkers gained no splendor without the resonance of his poetry.” (From the preface written by Golandām, Hafez’s contemporary, to the Dīvān.) And after his death, this speech was read alike by “the people of inward truth,” by “the people of outward appearances,” and by ordinary people in the streets and marketplaces, just as it is still read today.

Is this veiledness merely a kind of rhetorical complexity—an intentional knot tied in language by the poet? Can it be explained solely through double meanings, allusions, metaphors, and figurative language? The difficulty, however, is that in Hafez’s speech this concealment exists simultaneously with disclosure: revelation within hiddenness, or hiddenness within revelation. This is the mystery that Ahmad Shamlu discerned in Hafez when he wrote: “Hafez is a strange secret.” Yet this is a secret is not really a secret: everyone senses it, yet no one fully understands it. It is intricate but appears simple; it speaks, yet it does not speak. How can this mode of discourse be defined? As a rhetorical mode, to what category does it belong, and what name should be given to it?

We must first emphasize that we are dealing here with poetic speech, not merely verse. Consequently, the expressive mechanism of Hafez’s poetry must be sought within the poeticity of his text itself, and nowhere else. In Hafez’s own words, we are confronted with a unique and inimitable style of speech (طرز سخن ṭarz-e sokhan) or style of the ghazal (ṭarz-e ghazal طرز غزل). From this perspective, Hafez is simply a poet—neither a mystic, nor a philosopher or pessimistic sage, nor a Sufi estranged from the khānaqāh. Yet he is a poet who employs Sufi, theological, and philosophical concepts, just as he employs concrete images, in order to express his poetic purpose. These concepts constitute the vocabulary of his poetry. As Hafez himself says, his speech is “interwoven” from soul (ravān روان) and reason (خرد kherad):

I interwove soul with reason...

This interweaving of feeling and intellect—the spirit and rationality of the poet’s age—forms the subjectivity, or mentality, that thinks through poetry and within poetry.

To approach Hafez’s ghazals as poetry, focusing on their poeticity, obliges us to define both the form and content of his speech from within this poeticity itself, rather than by appealing to external matters such as the poet’s biography, the historical circumstances of his age, or the mystical and Sufi inspirations reflected in his verse. Instead, we seek an understanding of meaning through the distinctive mode of expression and the poetic text itself. Of course, any attempt to arrive at a definitive definition of something as inherently indeterminate as meaning in Hafez’s poetry is ultimately futile. Yet, every such attempt reveals the face of Hafez in his poetry a little more clearly.

Hafez is a problem. Is this because his speech is saturated with ambiguity? And what kind of ambiguity is it? Every poetic discourse contains ambiguity to some degree. But in Hafez’s poetry nothing is simply hidden behind ambiguity, nor is his speech merely double-edged in the common sense. Nothing in this poetic language is concealed. Everything is simultaneously revealed and hidden; it is a totality dispersed into fragments, a realm of both what is said and what remains unsaid. At every moment of reading, we confront the question: Is what has been said all that is being said? A question to which one can scarcely answer with a simple “yes” or “no.” In most moments of his poetry, Hafez says something that is not identical with what he says. This non-identity sometimes advances to the complete negation of the literal statement itself, revealing a contradiction. Thus, his poetry becomes, both in wording and in meaning, a space of contradictions. In this study, we call this contradiction in Hafez’s poetic expression irony (bāzhgūyī - باژگویی ).

Persian has long lacked an exact equivalent for the concept of irony. Traditionally, irony is understood as a rhetorical device or figure of speech: saying one thing while meaning another. But the aim here is not merely to enumerate examples of this device in Hafez’s poetry. Recent studies have addressed the terminology of irony and its use as a literary figure in Hafez and other major Persian poets. However, the present work does not seek merely to identify instances of irony as a rhetorical ornament in the Dīvān and comment upon them. Rather, irony is employed here as a conceptual framework for approaching Hafez’s poetry.

In other words, the attempt is to formulate and explain the “problem of Hafez” not at the level of individual words but at the level of the ironic discourse of his poetry. From this perspective, irony is something broader than a literary trope: it is a way of treating of language; it is a vision of the world or an expression of an ontological condition. As has often been observed, irony is not only an artifice of language (literature), but also an artifice of thought (philosophy). Through irony, the speaking subject appears to speak from within language while pretending to stand outside language and outside its inherent estrangements and contradictions. For this reason, ironic discourse is fundamentally a discourse of contradiction: speech that is at odds with itself, mocking and playful, yet at the same time capable of being bitter and tragic.

It is impossible to discuss irony merely in terms of its rhetorical and literary implications while ignoring its theoretical and philosophical dimensions. Yet a methodological point should be emphasized here. The purpose of approaching Hafez’s poetry through the conceptual framework of irony is not to philosophize with Hafez or about Hafez’s poetry. Philosophical approaches to Hafez have been, and continue to be, both possible and valuable. The present work, however, treats Hafez’s poetry as a literary text—as poetry—and draws upon the theoretical implications of irony only insofar as they help illuminate the poeticity of Hafez’s verse.

—

BIO:

Reza Farokhfal is a published writer in his country of origin (Iran). His fictional works as well as his works in literary theory and cultural studies have appeared in various prestigious literary periodicals and anthologies. His latest book, Sa’di’s Narrative of Exile, was recently published in Tehran. He acquired a B.A. in History from Pahlavi (Shiraz) University in Iran and a Master’s degree in Communications from Concordia University in Montreal.

Reza Farokhfal has previously taught Persian at the Islamic Studies Institute of McGill University in Montreal, University of Wisconsin in Madison and University of Colorado in Boulder. In teaching Persian (Farsi) as a less common taught language, he has tried to apply a ‘communicative approach’ in his classes as well as in compiling a course book titled Persian: Here and Now, for teaching at the introductory and intermediate levels of the Persian language.

for Renee Good

on a day the sky is winter white

and ice is underfoot.

shots rang out

killing Renee Nicole Good

did he shoot her because she’s a woman?

did he shoot her because she spoke out?

did he shoot her because she’ a woman?

a woman who dared to speak out.

just one

i am the river

i am the ocean

i am a snowflake

i am the rain

i am only water

[from the Tao - one thing . . . is one ]

we are able to put on personality as we would clothing .

a calm being is satisfied to be one .

mom’s skin

i wear my mother's skin 
dark spots on my arms -  
they come and go. 
when they're small i like to call them strawberries. 
over time they get darker and spread out-
then they fade.  

i remember the marks on my mom's arms also. 
she called them liver spots.  
now i wear her skin. it's thin - it tears easily - 
the spots grow and fade.  
near the end her skin was almost transparent . 

i wear my mom's skin
i can see my veins in my breastplate. 
i have spots that come and go 
my skin tears if i bump furniture 

it suited her well 
and now -
me also

BIO:

Marty Smith presents his poetry and paintings under the name onecloud, acknowledging the source voice that informs his work.

In 1983, he immigrated to Canada and settled in Toronto.

From 1997 to 2010, he produced a number of limited-edition artist’s books that paired his painted poems with short verse. He self-published two chapbooks: Poetry and Paintings by onecloud (2013) and Sophia’s Dream (2018).

In 2026, his poetry chapbook Fields of Memory was published by Secret Handshake Books in Toronto.

This review was originally written by Farkhondeh Hajizadeh on the Persian edition of Family Secret Memories. It has been translated into English by Asemana Magazine to accompany the publication of the novel’s English translation — rendered from the Persian by Mahshad Abdoli — released by Asemana Books on July 7, 2025.

Family Secret Memories, a novella by Mohammad Qassemzadeh, is available in paperback and Kindle editions through Amazon and Lulu. ISBN: 9781997503033.

-

“Incidents always happen when nobody expects them.”

The language in Family Secret Memories unfolds exactly as one might anticipate from Mohammad Qassemzadeh: simple, intimate, witty, and free of sentimental excess. Everything else, however, arrives as a surprise — every few pages, a small jolt, a bitter smile left at the corner of the mouth. The pages turn easily. With brevity and a gentle, non-malicious humor, and without any reliance on sensational plotting, Qassemzadeh carries a camera-like gaze through a politicized and frightening society. Within 180 pages, and in a historical register that feels close to the present, he captures both social realities and countless subtle observations — ranging from political and structural violence to the deepest psychological recesses of individual lives. Through laughter and irony, he shows the reader that they inhabit an era in which one must, willingly or not, learn to live inside a kind of emotional, cultural, literary, and familial mafia.

To prepare the ground for this journey, Qassemzadeh begins with the family — the most emotionally charged unit of society. From the outset, he merges seemingly ordinary domestic circumstances with the backdrop of World War II, demonstrating that the family can serve as a vehicle for everything that transpires within a society in crisis:

“He sat there, dumbstruck, in the middle of the room. Before the emperor’s message was broadcast, my mother asked, ‘So, what are you going to do? Will you come to the marriage registration office?’ He had no way out. He had to surrender. He finally agreed to go. But just as he opened his mouth to respond, the emperor’s message was broadcast. His words and the emperor’s words overlapped. In that moment, the emperor was also announcing Japan’s unconditional surrender.”

The method Qassemzadeh chooses is a cunning satire — a humor so deceptively simple that it registers only as a fleeting smile. His narrator, wearing an air of naïveté, stands playfully at the summit of a noisy world and looks down upon it, rendering everything ridiculous without ever indulging in self-display. Kierkegaard wrote that one who observes humanity’s writhing from the standpoint of eternity sees, in effect, through the eyes of God. From Qassemzadeh’s own vantage point, the novel resembles an egg the writer carries inside himself until it finally emerges — but only after exacting its toll:

“They say hens feel relieved after laying an egg, but for me, my problems begin the moment I have to struggle with the disaster that strikes me, fighting hard to solve the chaos it brings.”

Running alongside this sardonic self-awareness is something more instinctive — what Nietzsche regarded as wiser than reason. The narrator possesses a kind of animal intuition, a foreknowledge conveyed through signs, that allows him to “smell” approaching events. These are forces archetypally associated with feminine prophecy, yet here they reside within a male narrator, as if the novel is quietly scrambling the usual categories.

In the world the book constructs, there is no real choice. Events simply deposit things in one’s path. The narrator rises through the ranks almost by accident, becomes briefly famous, immerses himself in the pleasures of recognition, and discovers he was never truly in control. He arrives, eventually, at a state of complete desirelessness — not through spiritual transcendence, but through the slow realization that he lives in a narrow, conformist society governed by unjust logic and authoritarian power.

Its inhabitants, imprisoned within a web of “shoulds” and “should nots,” change masks according to circumstance. They wear artificial smiles in moments of suffering, like reluctant brides and grooms on a wedding night:

“Mother and my brother-in-law stood outside the room, exactly like people waiting outside a bridal chamber. They talked and laughed heartily. When I approached them, both turned toward me. I realized they were talking about my sister, who was not well at all. Yet Mother and my brother-in-law were obliged to observe the customs of the Week of Celebration.”

And more starkly:

“But in a way, it was a mercy that he died in the early morning of the last day of Happiness Week.… No matter how difficult it was, we kept his body at home for a day. It was a day of joy and celebration, and no one dared to show sadness. That day, I went to the pharmacy twice to buy a special powder to prevent the corpse from smelling due to the heat. Although I was mourning my father’s death, I laughed loudly in the alley and on the street, trying to dispel any doubts or suspicions from the people and the police. But officers are never fooled by such laughter.”

This is a world in which writers’ and journalists’ cemeteries have been closed, the dead are buried anonymously, newspapers exist only to fill crime pages, and government-sponsored artists resemble one another like twins. Technology has become another instrument of control: files are created or erased with the push of a button, and officials claim to know the innermost thoughts of citizens. The first victims include poor Othello — the narrator’s brother-in-law, and seller of the very surveillance technology now used against him — and then the narrator himself, who does not die but is brought to a point so close to erasure that even a toilet becomes a refuge:

“I stayed in the toilet so long that they grew worried and started knocking. From behind the door I reassured them with two ‘uh-huhs.’ When I emerged, several cameramen had arrived and filmed my exit.”

Stripped of dignity and security, he retreats to his mother’s and sister’s home, and finds himself envying the happiness of his mentally disabled brother — a man who spends his days playing board games, blissfully insulated from the political machinery around him. It is a cruel joke that the novel earns.

Though Qassemzadeh’s satire can initially appear to target women more sharply than men — giving a first impression of misogyny — a closer reading reveals something more considered. His women are not inferior figures; they are contemporary women navigating political crisis alongside men, often with greater prudence and steadiness. To surpass their male counterparts, they form alliances easily, across generations. The only true winner, as Mother herself predicts, turns out to be the happy, eccentric brother who, by hurling a flowerpot and accidentally killing the mayor, unwittingly determines the nation’s political future.

What is most striking about the author’s treatment of gender is his refusal to adjudicate. Mother functions not merely as a mother, nor simply as a metaphor for the homeland, but as a symbol of governance itself — of social conditions as they actually operate. Father, a journalist, works tirelessly; Mother decides which stories get printed. Both are ultimately defeated, but Mother keeps playing to the end. The author’s intelligence, and his occasional identification with the women in his novel, saves him from the ranks of anti-woman writers. His neutrality, meanwhile, leaves readers to form their own conclusions.

Formally, Qassemzadeh’s most significant literary device — beyond his remarkable economy of expression — is contradiction and defamiliarization in the Shklovskian sense: praise that resembles blame, blame that resembles praise. The novel’s title is itself a clue. The narrator announces early on that he remembers nothing from childhood except beatings. Then, just as the reader braces for another tale of suffering, he recalls his home address on Star Alley and the stories his mother and sister told about the stars. It is a small pivot, but it contains the book’s whole method: meaning smuggled in under the cover of apparent meaninglessness, lessons delivered not as lessons, but as humor so light it almost isn’t there.

BIO:

Farkhondeh Hajizadeh is an Iranian writer, literary critic, and publisher. As the founder and director of Vistar Publications in Tehran and the editor of the literary journal Bāyā, she has played a significant role in promoting contemporary Persian literature and supporting independent literary voices. Her work spans fiction, literary criticism, and memoir, and she is widely recognized as an influential figure in Iran’s contemporary literary landscape.

We are delighted to announce the publication of a remarkable new addition to our catalog; an important work of Persian literary history now available in English translation for the first time.

Published by Asemana Books

SADEQ MAMQULI:

THE SHERIFF OF ISFAHAN

OR

THE SHERLOCK HOLMES OF IRAN

A novel by
Kazem Musta’an al-Sultan (Hooshidaryan)

Translated and introduced by:
Mahdi Ganjavi

ISBN: 9781069021069

This landmark translation introduces readers to the first modern detective novel written in Persian, originally published in 1925. Seamlessly blending the investigative brilliance of Holmesian mysteries with the rich storytelling traditions of Persian classical literature, the novel is set in the late Qajar era (circa 1860s–1880s) and follows the resourceful sheriff of Isfahan as he navigates the complexities of crime and justice during the Nasiri period.

Brought to life by Mahdi Ganjavi, this translation not only preserves the novel’s vivid narrative but also reveals an astonishing real-life twist: the book itself became the key to uncovering the long-lost identity of its author, Mustaʿan al-Sultan. Both a gripping tale and a remarkable piece of literary history, this work is sure to captivate readers and scholars alike.

About the Translator

Mahdi Ganjavi, PhD (University of Toronto), is a literary translator and distinguished historian of education, print, and literature in the Middle East. A former postdoctoral fellow at the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University, he currently teaches at the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on the transnational history of literature, books, education, print, and translation, as well as the politics of archives and counter-archiving practices in the contemporary Middle East.

Ganjavi’s book, Education and the Cultural Cold War in the Middle East: The Franklin Book Programs in Iran (2023), received the Middle East Librarians Association (MELA) 2023 Book Award. His second monograph (co-authored), titled Revolutionary Engineers: Learning, Politics, and Activism at Aryamehr University of Technology, is published by MIT Press in 2025. His scholarly writings, essays, and reviews have appeared in The American Archivist, Encyclopaedia Iranica, Iranian Studies, and Review of Middle East Studies.

Ganjavi’s translations of high modernist eco-poetry and New York School poetry into Persian have been published in several literary magazines, including Neveshta and Namomken. His translations of Likoo, a syllabic poetry from Southeast Iran, have appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation and Asymptote. These translations were later published under the title Whispers of Oasis: Likoo’s Poetic Mirage (Asemana Books, 2024).

Between 2016 and 2019, Ganjavi edited and oversaw the publication of seven little-known Persian novels from the 1930s and 1940s, which shed light on the origins of science fiction, detective fiction, and utopian fiction in Persian. He has also successfully completed the first critical edition of “Henriyah Translation” (Tarjumah Hinrīyah), the earliest Persian translation of One Thousand and One Nights (Maniahonar, 2022).

Purchase Your Copy

Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1069021067

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https://www.lulu.com/shop/kazem-mustaan-al-sultan-and-mahdi-mahdi-and-mahdi-mahdi/sadeq-mamquli-the-sheriff-of-isfahan-or-the-sherlock-holmes-of-iran/paperback/product-jempg4v.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Learn More

https://asemanabooks.ca/sadeq-mamquli/

We are proud to bring this pioneering work of Persian detective fiction to an international audience and hope you will join us in celebrating its publication. Whether you are interested in world literature, detective fiction, Iranian cultural history, or the history of the novel, Sadeq Mamquli offers a fascinating and rewarding reading experience.

—

In contemporary Persian dramatic literature, works capable of simultaneously transcending the boundaries of realism, engaging with social and human concerns, and maintaining an independent aesthetic identity are relatively rare. From this perspective, the play collection Hold Me, Fishes by Alireza Shielsar can be regarded as a significant work; a collection consisting of three plays which, although seemingly independent narratives on the surface, belong on deeper levels to a shared world: a world in which human beings, under the pressure of war, repression, poverty, migration, loneliness, and anxiety, attempt to find meaning in continuing to live.

What captures the audience’s attention from the very first pages is the playwright’s insistence on a direct confrontation with pain. In many dramatic works, suffering merely serves as a context for the formation of drama, but in this collection, suffering itself becomes one of the principal elements of the theatrical world. The characters do not merely speak about violence; they live within it. They carry their wounds, converse with them, and at times even need them in order to survive.

The play The Most torturous slaying is a clear example of this approach. In this work, the playwright creates a space that resembles a post-war limbo more than a home. A mother and child who have lived for years beneath the shadow of war and massacre are now trapped in an isolated world; a world in which torture has replaced healing, and pain has become the only instrument of consolation. This terrifying inversion forms the core of the play. Gradually, the audience realizes that the characters are not searching for liberation, but rather for a way to endure their memories.

In this play, war is not merely a historical event; it is a force that has internally shattered the structure of the human psyche. Instead of depicting the battlefield itself, the playwright reveals its consequences upon the minds of the survivors. The soldier who has escaped the war continues to live inside it. The mother, too, although far removed from the battlefield, remains surrounded by memories, losses, and her physical and psychological wounds. The result is a nightmarish atmosphere in which death, love, pity, and violence become intertwined.

Yet perhaps the most important play in the collection is the work from which the book itself takes its title: Hold Me, Fishes. This play is one of the most poetic and, at the same time, one of the bleakest narratives of migration and displacement in contemporary Persian dramatic literature. The central character is a woman who, after the sinking of a boat carrying refugees, remains suspended between life and death on the surface of the sea. In the final moments of her life, she revisits her memories, fears, physical and psychological wounds, and shattered dreams.

In this work, the playwright succeeds in advancing several narrative layers simultaneously. On one level, we are confronted with a human crisis: the crisis of migration, war, and displacement. On another level, we encounter the damaged mind of a woman who has lost the boundary between reality and hallucination. The fish, the sea, the voices, Morse code signals, and the memories of interrogations gradually become part of her mental world, creating a surreal and delirious atmosphere. This delirium is not merely a formal experiment; rather, it reflects a human experience pushed to the brink of collapse under the pressure of political and social violence.

One of the outstanding features of this play is its refusal to simplify the issue of migration. The woman in the play is neither an absolute hero nor merely a passive victim. She is a complex human being whose various layers gradually reveal themselves throughout the narrative. It is precisely this complexity that prevents the audience from encountering a merely political statement and instead confronts them with a profoundly human experience that can be understood beyond any geography or ideology.

The third play in the book, My Husband Picasso, at first glance appears different from the other two works, yet in reality it is the logical continuation of the same intellectual world. This time, the playwright turns toward an artist living in an indifferent and exhausted society an artist whose talent, creativity, and idealism not only receive no reward, but instead become factors in his gradual erosion and erasure.

In this work, the female character speaks about her husband in a bitter, ironic, and at times delirious tone, comparing him to Pablo Picasso. From the outset, this comparison appears exaggerated, but as the narrative progresses, its symbolic function becomes increasingly clear. Picasso here is not merely a famous painter; he is the symbol of a mechanism that transforms some artists into myths while consigning others to oblivion. The central question of the play is whether artistic value belongs to the work itself or to the social and historical conditions in which that work is perceived.

From a formal perspective, all three plays rely heavily on monologue, repetition, poetic imagery, and psychological atmosphere. The playwright shows little interest in linear narration and instead attempts to recreate the characters’ mental states on stage. At times, this characteristic brings the works close to the realm of absurd theatre, and at other times to poetic theatre. In many moments, the characters are engaged less in dialogue with one another than in conversations with their own memories, nightmares, and wounds.

This, of course, can also become a point of debate. At times, the high density of poetic imagery and deliberate repetitions slows the dramatic rhythm and demands greater patience from the audience in following the narrative. Likewise, the continuous intensity of violence and suffering may feel exhausting for some readers. Yet this is a conscious choice on the part of the playwright; he does not wish to present violence as beautiful or bearable. His aim is precisely to force the audience into confronting what we usually turn away from.

One of the most significant achievements of this collection is the creation of a world in which the human body becomes the primary site of drama. In Shielsar’s works, the body is not merely a physical element; it carries memory, history, fear, repression, and hope within itself. Wounds are not merely wounds; they are documents of the characters’ lives. Every body in this collection is an archive of individual and collective suffering.

On another level, the book addresses the question of memory. The characters are constantly returning to the past. Memories neither die nor release them. Like wandering ghosts, they remain beside the characters and shape their present lives. In this world, forgetting is impossible, and human beings are condemned to live among the remnants of their own memories.

In this collection, Alireza Shielsar avoids creating heroic characters in the conventional sense. His characters are often defeated, wounded, isolated, and on the verge of collapse. Yet it is precisely at this point that their humanity becomes visible. Despite all their failures, they continue to struggle to survive, to narrate, to love, and to find meaning in their suffering.

Ultimately, Hold Me, Fishes can be understood as a collection about contemporary humanity: a humanity living in a world saturated with violence, instability, and anxiety, constantly struggling to preserve its identity. In this book, the playwright avoids simple answers and instead raises difficult questions about life, death, memory, power, art, and survival.

Rather than seeking to entertain its audience, this collection invites them to confront the darkest dimensions of human experience. Perhaps this is why, after finishing the book, what remains in the mind is not merely the stories and characters, but a lasting sensation of encountering a world that, despite all its bitterness and violence, remains profoundly human.

Hold Me, Fishes is an independent, courageous, and deeply personal voice in contemporary Persian playwriting—a voice that, through nightmare, poetry, and suffering, offers an unforgettable portrait of modern human existence.

Sanaz Davoodzadeh Far

i. Gaza eternal

the babies. nothing.
the old. nothing.
the women, the men, 
the boys, the girls.
nothing.

the sick. nothing.
the maimed. nothing.
the screaming wounded. nothing.
the maddened of all ages.
nothing.

one by one 
by a hundred, by a thousand. 
nothing.

ii. Uninvited guest

the bomb enters at suppertime
unannounced

good evening 
he says

don’t 
get up

i’m just here
to defend myself

iii. Here and there

another house eats a family
alive: under the heap of broken rooms, feeding on 
blood, the stones do not lie

but screens conceal us all:
the sounds that wounded children make
are too faint to be heard

night is a tattered cloak
pocked by stars
a memory of blue

we pull it over ourselves
till the sun arrives,
blazing

iv. Gaza action figure

the future is a gaping wound,
the past a scar. the present is ours:
we drink the rain, drop by drop,
until we drown, still thirsty.

v. Kindergrab

one, maryam. she wanted to be a doctor.
ten, the faces blur; the names are already
too many to remember,
their small dreams are unknown to us.

one hundred, the smell of paper and ink.
accountants begin their work.
their only math is addition.
one thousand, that’s a bigger number.

five, ten thousand—how easily we move
from one to the other. and to the next.
something has been left behind
and we no longer know what it was.

but as these late fall days 
tumble into darkness
it’s as though we were present at their deaths.
as though we were breathing ash.

vi. Mood indigo

wounds are impossible to explain.
all you can do is scream

when your skin opens,
your bones break through.

but, they say,
that’s not an argument.

the death of a family
under the bombs

has no dimensions
but loss: why speak?

there is no defence
but our presence.

we have stories to tell, 
but words are prison bars.

vii. Khalil loses the world

the top of the cage is blue
and hard as stone

the skeleton of the city
holds me like a failing heart

soldiers bear away
the wounded sun

out of the wrecked land
that loved me

my mother sang
until she was out of breath

and the room where i slept
drifts away on the wind

viii. Gaza/eclipse

silence shouts, it shudders in agony,
begs, opens itself up like
an animal for the skinning

as a procession of the starved shambles by,
as the severed limbs are gathered up,
as the bombings never stop.

live in this ruined house for a moment, 
i promise you will speak as if
you just discovered language

as if the moon, tired of its track,
has just let the sun go free and wild
and birds open their throats in song.

ix. The cruelest month

when anger is molten lead, cracking
its clay vessel and spilling on the ground
before it tenses, solid, yet searing
the plants and feeble insects in a round
scar, erasing the spring—

but the season refuses, in any case,
to flourish in the old way:
new leaves sparkle in the cold rain,
even a little snow. april is dithering, 
unable to make up its mind.

so my heart, after the latest round
of dead and dying, wonders
if it need be careful, careful
as before, with what it carries,
burning in my hands.

x. Just when

you get used to walking on coals
you get used to more scars than skin
you get used to holding children,
reduced to ash, in your hand

you get used to getting by
without a hand, without a leg
or both, without eyes, without 
a life, and you wonder what hell is like

you stagger and shake, looking for water, 
feed for the family supper,
stumble into the safety they promised,
turn to sparks and a single cry.

xi. The image

the image bled: a child had touched it,
and another. old lies were untold, vanished
in a flash of new truth. 

the image began to flake off the cold concrete wall,
leaving marks like sores. the image gave
a crooked smile. doubtful noise arose

from the crowd assembled. how long
had they prayed and cheered? the image
moaned, snarled, accused,

its colour fading. the image felt pain
for the first time. it could smell
its own death. 

xii. The art of dying

learning not to breathe
was the easy part
stopping the bleeding
was more difficult, until
the blood ran out.

the flesh, the bones
took care of themselves
in this ruined land
where my house once stood.
damn, they make it look simple.

they have no idea. 
it’s craft to die, it’s art.
i shake off the dust
that i’ve become. 
here is the finished product. 

xiii. For Danny

whether, instead of a bomb
you fell to earth
shattering a part of me

like a house full of children
in gaza, like a feeble old man
in gaza under that daily rain—

we topple like towers on sand.
a wind's breath can do it,
an angry whisper

in the uncaring half-light.
our hearts are beating too loudly: 
shh, hold your breath. 

even the stars can fall, are felled,
shiver in place.
warm them. with one glance.

xiv. Privilege

(for Sha'ban Al-Dalou)

bleeding pictures, broken words
are pulling themselves from ruins,
going about their daily task of living
where all the stones are gravestones.

i feel as i might,
not as i must. you wouldn’t notice 
in that hard fire. 
a measure of freedom for us both.

i am only 
a prepared heart. 
i see you, sha’ban, 
but my screen is a mirror.

BIO:

John Baglow is the author of three books of poetry: Emergency Measures (Sono Nis Press, 1976), Journey Under Glass (Penumbra Press, 2004), and Murmuration: Marianne’s Book (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023). He is also the author of a book of literary criticism, Hugh MacDiarmid: The Poetry of Self (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1987).

His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines, including The Malahat Review, Wascana Review, Windsor Review, Capilano Review, Literary Review of Canada, Antigonish Review, Canadian Literature, Dalhousie Review, Queen’s Quarterly, Prism International, The Café Review, and Eastern Structures.

A former executive officer of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), Baglow currently lives and writes in Ottawa.

The buyer had a well seasoned merchant’s spirit. He had seen through and out the other man’s troubles and was not going to give a better offer. He was getting the whole herd practically for nothing, and he hadn’t the slightest remorse. The seller almost lost his temper and was ready to send him away, sell him nothing. This was a bargain gone wrong. He gazed at the animals grazing in the field and it seemed to him that the ram, the leader of the herd, moved his horns in approval.

“Well done my friend! Your day finally is here!” he said, full of anger to the buyer, a fifty-year-old maybe, but looking much older due to the harsh sun tan and the exploiter’s shadow that befell him.

“My day! There is no profit in this kind of business! I should just leave, go to Germany, or Greece, rather than look after sheep for a few dollars,” replied the buyer, pretending to sound uninterested while getting a handful of banknotes out of the inside pocket of his jacket and counting them.

“It’s not profitable, but they bring milk, butter and cheese to the table, meat and wool for a few pairs of sweaters and socks, a cloak and a rug to sit by the fire. A little dairy to take to the market. If it wasn’t for this misery…” he stopped and bit his tongue, being aware these words weren’t to his advantage. The other guy was going to take full advantage of his weakness. Of course he knew that these villages would have no water very soon. A monstrous creature was cutting the river flow and they had no strength or means to stop it.

His great grandparents had fought for water, too. Their legendary battles were passed mouth to mouth, from generation to generation. They had fought with beasts and dragons, the prize had been high, their lives and blood, but they had won over them. They had killed the beasts that drank up the water and life continued to flow on those ancient lands, thousands years old.

But this time, the beast was made of iron with many heads, and it got its strength far from there. How could they cut out this beast’s real head? Who would be the Hercules that could fight such a beast?

****

A loud noise broke the morning’s peace. Some kind of heavy equipment was passing by, maybe, but the pounding noise was getting louder and louder instead of dissipating, shaking the ground. Within a few minutes, those few inhabitants that remained on those parts had gone out of their houses, running in the direction the noise was coming, by the river.

A great shock awaited them there. Construction equipment and bulldozers started their work, clearly to cut the way and change the river’s bed.

Of course, people didn’t cross their arms idly. They grabbed stakes, stones, whatever came in handy and tried to stop them.

They petitioned, taking all legal actions and even going to court; but, it was evident they weren’t going to win. The iron hydra was going to take away the river and send it somewhere else, on top of Palas, to fill up a huge fancy pool where the nude gods of a new cult were going to bathe, given that its power came from a collective orgy among all ranks and circles.

The protest achieved all that could be achieved momentarily and people spread out to their houses and troubles.

“Don’t despair,’ said one geologist to him, “the measurements clearly show that Shushica doesn’t have half the volume of water they pretend to have available. We’ll represent these data to court. Like this, fifty villages will burn out and there won’t be even a drop of water left to drip into Vjosa’s bed. That would be the total destruction of the National Park! The government, the law can’t allow this to happen!”

But somehow, his words didn’t really warm his heart. With heavy thoughts he went home. His wife set the dinner table while his aged parents watched the news, sitting on an old Ottoman sofa covered in sheep skin. He kept eating instinctively with no desire, while his brain processed the heated arguments he had during the day with workers and local government representatives.

There! The local news chronicle started and he saw his face on the TV screen among the protesters. Food got stuck in his throat, and he was unable to swallow. He drank some water to wash it down.

The journalist, daughter of that region, was sounding as emotional as the habitants and the ecosystem activists as she addressed the severe situation present since the break of the water supply systems that left the fields barren, forcing the habitants of these thirty-seven villages, once fertile lands, to leave, stressing even more on the great irrecoverable ecological damage National Vjosa Park would suffer as the result of river’s bed change.

Ten minutes air time. That was it. His father shut off the TV. No one in the room objected to his action. They didn’t need senseless noise. He finished his meal and sat with his parents on the sofa. Father and son lit their rolled up cigars and his wife brought them Turkish coffee shortly after.

“Well, my son,” started his father with a steady tone while grabbing his coffee cup, “in my grandfather’s time when the beasts would show up and get hold of the rivers, we would try to appease them with a sacrifice, a lamb or sheep. If they weren’t appeased the stronger boy would seek the oracle’s advice on how to fight it best, how to defeat it. The beasts had their weakness as well, a hidden spot where you could attack them and defeat them. You needed wisdom as well as strength and bravery. Too many fine young men have lost their lives. The springs keep gushing, because they are filled with their blood.”

The old man took a short break, put his lips on the cup’s edge, gulped a little coffee and without even looking at his son continued even more calmly.

“Now listen to your oracle, this old man that has lived a long life and has seen a lot. With this kind of a beast you cannot win. Sacrifices and war are of no help at all. All these heads you see around are just pawns. She can even cut them herself and throw them to the dogs with no care at all, for she can grow two or three others in their place instantly. The real one is somewhere safe, unreachable. The world would be reaching its end before this head falls. ‘Don’t play with fire and government’ as the old saying goes…”

“You mean, leave the land and everything and go. Take care of the Greeks’ herd, work their lands, pick up their oranges and leave mine here to rot and dry out!” He broke out, quite upset.

The old man smiled bitterly, shaking his head. Of course his son wasn’t immature or naive. He just hadn’t fully evaluated the situation.

“Well, my son, you don’t understand the state’s power. The state’s hand is behind all this misery. Didn’t the state lower the price of milk? Leave the crap aside: free economy, free trade. The state’s long hands stretch all along from dairy factories to customs, allowing imported foods, hundreds of trucks each day, with zero tariffs. Go, sell your milk now for the same price you sold before! Is anyone going to buy it?”

Irony and anger rose gradually in his voice while his son couldn’t even object to any of his remarks.

“See, the State has you in his hand. It squeezes you as hard as it pleases it, and when you are no longer valuable, it tosses you in a corner of the world.”

A heavy silence filled the room. All four of them kept their eyes down at their coffee cups, the dark rings on their edges and the thick sediment on the bottom. They had nothing to say or add.

“Sell the sheep! My heart aches to say this but go, my son! Go join your brothers abroad. I can’t keep you hostage here. Take your wife and children and go! They have suffered enough here. Winter is coming. No water, no light. Their school is so far away, too far to walk. Go, my son!

He hadn’t managed to put a word in. His father’s words weighed so heavily on his heart. Sell the sheep, take his wife and kids and go, just like his brothers. No, he had sworn he would never do that. He would never leave his parents alone. He knew there was no chance they would leave their house, their village, and go after their children in a foreign land. No, this would never happen. He would stay there until their eyes would close to never open again. As the younger son, he was supposed to take care of them and he was going to fulfill his duty. He would never abandon them. They would make do somehow.

For days, his father’s words ground him down. All drained, he tried to reason himself out, taking both sides of the argument. His wife, thank goodness, didn’t push the conversation. She didn’t say a single word, neither stayed nor went. It pained her to see him toss and turn all night in bed. In that little sleep he managed to get, he would see himself immersed to his waist in blood, fighting beasts and hydras, smoke and fog and unclear endings. He couldn’t remember if he killed them or if they killed him. He would’ve liked for times to go back so he could have in front of him a real beast, a beast in flesh and blood. A beast he could possibly kill with the help of the oracle’s wisdom and his father’s blessing. And if he didn’t succeed, another fine brave man would and the village would have water again, and life would go on. But in such times as they lived there were no more real oracles and no real beasts.

****

When hell breaks loose! The river that summer had very little water, forcing him to take the herd even further out to drink. He was gone from morning to night. He was wearing out commuting such long distances, which was no good for the animals either. They couldn’t gain weight as they kept losing so much energy on the back and forth. It would be better to sell them and go to his brothers in Belgium. See with his own eyes how life was there. Couldn’t be worse than here or they would have returned. “Gosh, even when they come to visit once a year, they hardly give a hundred euros to the old folks. They gave some money in the beginning when they first settled out there, and after that the account books closed. They don’t care that their pensions as farmers are the lowest in the country. They don’t even ask if they can afford their medications! How could they be so stingy! Are their wives to blame? That’s why there is a saying in some parts, ‘Choose women and cows from your own village’ They took Belgium wives! Mixed our blood! God damn it!”

From morning to night he kept changing his mind so many times, unable to decide what to do. A summer had gone and another was on its way. Even though the case was taken to the high court, waiting for a hearing date, the beast had sent out again the excavators and bulldozers ready to grind alive even their bodies if they got in the way.

His old man had been right, one thousand percent. This beast was unstoppable. Useless for him to stay. Gone all the time, drained completely, he was no good as husband or a father.

*****

The buyer took his time to count the money which ended up being the exact amount as the settled price. Not a dollar more. “That means he had made up his mind really well before even coming here. Good, I’m used to the rope around my neck too. I will teach this son of a bitch, this dirty opportunist a lesson he’ll remember,” he thought while measuring the guy with his eyes.

“Leave it. It can’t be done. I won’t sell for such a low price,” he spoke firmly and showed him the way. The buyer was shocked, as he assumed the deal was made already.

“Only half of such a good breed of herd is worth the amount you are offering and as a well seasoned man in the business you know it very well. Go! I have nothing to sell you.”

“But that’s all I can afford. I have no more money. I travelled all the way here!” said the buyer, not happy at all. He couldn’t understand why this deal was wrecked suddenly.

“Ok. Since you travelled all the way here, to be fair, I will give you what that amount can buy. I am going to keep the ram, those three sheep and that pied goat over there,” he pointed them out while checking the other man’s reaction with the corner of his eye.

“That’s too much you are keeping!” came the whining complaint of the buyer.

“As you wish. You don’t like the deal, leave it! I have no rush to sell. I will wait for a better price.”

The buyer was processing again what a man from this same village had told him: “He has the rope tight on his neck. He is going to sell everything, land and animals, and is going to immigrate to Belgium where his brothers are.” It seemed like he was not rushed to go, but what was he going to do here without any water at all? They didn’t even have drinking water anymore, and were forced to load it onto horses and donkeys to bring it home from the springs.

He weighed it to consider whether or not but he already saw the answer written on the young man’s face: “I will slaughter them, dry the meat in the sun, make nice pastrami to last for seven years and give you nothing.” He put his anger aside and evaluated the situation again, the new bargain. The animals were truly a very nice breed, healthy and good for reproduction and dairy. It was still a very good bargain and he shouldn’t be so greedy and let it sleep through his fingers.

“Ok. Deal! Good luck to both of us! You can keep what you pointed out.”

***

He felt a spear go through his heart as he closed the ram, the three sheep and the pied goat in the barn. Of course! It pained him to see what he had worked so hard for since his youth vanished with no trace on earth, just a handful of money that couldn’t even resolve a quarter of the problems he had.

The house needed a new roof and the car wasn’t worth the repairs anymore, but he had to deal with it for the time being because he couldn’t afford to buy a newer one or have nothing. School was starting soon and it took the kids an hour and half, not to say two, each way, all the way down to the city, Vlora. His old parents had a list of illnesses and meds they needed. He had to open a well. So at least they could have drinking water at home. He was going to fetch a lead bullet, tie it on a rope and follow its lead. He will open the well at the spot where the vibrations would be stronger. He had no money to hire geologs for that. He would rely on his grandparents’ methods that never failed.

Thoughts were rushing in his head with such eagerness like a strong river, returning to his bed after a long absence. He wasn’t going to leave. He would find a job in the city and slowly grow his herd again.

“God will come to our aid and bless us again,” he gave courage to himself. “Maybe we’ll be lucky and you pregnant pied one will birth three kids this time. Until you multiply and grow in numbers, who knows what God has in store for us. Maybe He’ll strike them with a thunderbolt or an earthquake there in their lavish pool, and wipe out with one blow their kind entirely for good!” He added out loud while laying fresh new straw for the animals.

Then he patted those creatures down, one by one, that had become even dearer now, took the electric lamp, closed the door behind, and started out to the house where his wife, kids and his old parents were waiting for him. The lights coming from there warmed up his heart.

Surprisingly he felt better, lighter now that he had decided to stay. At least we will survive, just with their milk alone. We’ll survive. God knows what He has in store for his people.

He lifted up his head to search for confirmation that his prayer was heard up there and saw the bloody moon that had arrived over the village. “Let the beasts eat each others’ heads!” He cursed out loud, remembering his elders’ words anytime a bloody moon was up in the sky, and the regurgitation of the journalist and analyst that predicted nothing else other than the possibility of a third world war.

BIO

Armenida Qyqja was born in Tirana, Albania in 1977 and immigrated to Canada in 1995. She is the author of eight poetry books and two books of short stories. Her most recent book is Golden Armor, a poetry collection published by Transcendent Zero Press (Texas, USA 2025).

On March 21, 2026—1 Farvardin 1405 in the Iranian calendar—acclaimed Iranian poet Shams Langeroodi sat down to write a brief reflection on the poetry of Hassan Safdari, known by his literary name, Bijan. The circumstances were extraordinary. Iran was under U.S. and Israel bombardment, and, as Langeroodi himself notes, the voice of death seemed louder than the voice of life. Yet it was precisely at that moment that he chose to write about a poet whose work, in his view, embodies an unwavering openness to life.

Asemana Magazine has translated and is now publishing this note on Bijan Safdari’s poetry on the occasion of the recent publication of The World Stares at Me, and I at Heart (Asemana Books, 2026), a bilingual selection of Safdari’s poetry translated from Persian primarily by the poet himself, with a number of poems translated by Dr. Alireza Abiz. Bringing together poems written across several decades, the volume introduces English-language readers to one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Persian poetry.

Hassan “Bijan” Safdari was born on February 10, 1950, in Isfahan. His literary formation began in his youth under the mentorship of the late poet and critic Mohammad Hoquqi and through his association with the first generation of Jong-e Esfahan, one of the most influential literary circles in modern Iranian literature. Beginning in the 1990s, his poetry appeared in prominent Iranian literary journals, establishing him as a recognizable and original poetic voice.

After emigrating to the United States, Safdari pursued studies in management, performed in English-language theatre productions in Memphis, and wrote the English-language poetry collection Alone in Memphis. He adopted the pen name “Bijan” in tribute to the poet Bijan Jalali, whose influence can be felt in Safdari’s lyrical precision and contemplative style.

Over the years, Safdari has produced a substantial body of work that includes poetry, translation, literary criticism, and documentary film projects. His publications include The Wind Is Outside the Window, I Am the Other, I Slept Under Your Umbrella, Kuh-e Soffeh, and Death Letter, a poetic meditation on mortality and loss. His translations have introduced Persian readers to works by T. S. Eliot, Federico García Lorca, Octavio Paz, and The Song of Solomon from the Hebrew Bible.

The reflection translated below offers an illuminating reading of Safdari’s poetic vision. Langeroodi focuses especially on a theme that runs throughout much of Safdari’s work: death. Yet his argument is striking. Safdari, he suggests, is not a poet of death but a poet of life. Even when confronting mortality, aging, grief, and absence, his poems remain animated by imagination, desire, wonder, and a profound attachment to the world.

Langeroodi compares this outlook to that of Omar Khayyam: a clear-eyed awareness of death combined with an embrace of life’s fleeting beauty. Read today, his remarks resonate not only as literary criticism but also as a testament to poetry’s ability to affirm life in times of uncertainty, violence, and loss.

We are pleased to present below an English translation of Shams Langeroodi’s note.

The Openness to Life in Bijan’s Poetry

If poetry reflects the inner face of the poet, then the poems of Hassan Safdari (Bijan) reflect his Khayyam-like way of life—a poetry that welcomes life and harbors no fear of death.

His book Death, a collection of poems written in elegy for his father, is in fact an affirmation of life in the face of mortality. It contains more than seventy poems, distilling a lifetime of contemplation.

In one of his latest poetry collections, we read:

“I fear that tomorrow I may not be here, and yet the flower will be.”

In this poem, he is not worried about death; rather, he is restless at the thought of life continuing without him.

Elsewhere he writes:

“Beautiful one,
I have grown old.
I fear I may fall from the branch
and death may discover that I am still alive.”

The longing expressed in this beautiful poem is the longing of a life that remains fruitful and productive.

“I grow old, I die, but death knows that I am still alive.”

The poet knows that all of this is an act of imagination, yet he prefers to be an imaginative advocate of life rather than a realist of death.

He says:

“The ruin of my imagination is what built me.”

And he says:

“Do you not take pleasure
when the sword opens its eyes
and my phosphorescent thought
bears the fruit of dreams?”

These few lines are being written under the bombardment of Iran, as a tribute to the exhilarating pleasure I have taken from Hassan Safdari’s (Bijan’s) poetry over the years—especially now, when we hear the voice of death more loudly than the voice of life.

Shams Langeroodi
1 Farvardin 1405 / March 21, 2026

Shams Langeroodi

Bijan Safdari

Calculatingly

(with a fat eye
on publicity, 
you used the terms
“good-heartedly”
and “heroically”)

you carefully—to avoid
my family, you said—

bombed my evil neighbour. 

He wasn’t home.
Anyway, what you 
actually hit and destroyed
was next door.
You killed my sister and brother.
So now I will hate you
forever.

And so now, here’s what would be fair.
If anything any longer
can ever be fair.

Lock yourself in a chamber
until you discover
how to restore
my loves alive to me.

Reverse your war. 

And if you never
can bring them back,
then die and rot in there
so we hear from you no more.

BIO:

A. F. Moritz’s new book of poems is The Wren (2026), his 23rd. Almost simultaneously he is publishing his English version of Juan Ramón Jiménez’s great 1918 book Eternities, which Homero Aridjis calls “one of the very best translations of any of the great Spanish-language poets”.

We zipper in     zipper out
divide     bisect     rule in     rule out
borders and stanchions
the moats and railings 
of the human heart

Restrict     forbid     segment
we rope off even
the water     the mare liberum
with its scars 
of jurisdictional seas
and laneways
Eintritt verboten
we float
above the hash marks
seeking friendly skies
and a place to take us in

Bollards and hedgerows
blockades and barriers
we’ve mastered
the art of walls
blistered this
partitioned paradise
with the barbed wire  
of defended edges
red lines and rhetoric 
marked our territory
with the cat piss 
of arrogance 
and blinkered ambition
this is mine
and that is yours
a planet pixelated
into endless islands
of fortified ownership
we value more
than people’s lives.

I say these things
to my neighbour
as we lean across
the garden fence
respectful of the
line between us

the land of the other

all these little lives
in all these little houses

all the whirring 
inside these microscopic
weeping worlds that 
zipper us together yet 
keep us so far apart. 

Call for Submissions

touched on everything
that eats my sleep

the way things burn
the way things seep

our worship of the 
elusive blue checkmark,
the avatar shields that
bleed the person out,
apps for everything
except the human heart,
blue suited sycophants 
dancing on the rosy tip
of annihilation, that
fat red nipple tease
of a button just
an insult away,

the careless Gatsbys
and their little misses
snorting coke and caviar
while our planet burns
and children roam the 
village bloated, wearing 
smoke for clothing in 
this depleted world where 
peace is now commoditized 
and sold to the knee bend 
bidder with the most
convincing grovel.

We edit the corrosion
out of history now,
remove the blood with 
our creative blotters
of reinvention and will 
our world into what works
for us, while behind the 
curtain the needles whisper 
love into tattooed arms
and the one percenters
back slap the victory bulge
of the closing bell.
Purchases are now 
our Gods, though Canada’s 
most famous stripes writhe
upon the discount table.
We’re click counters now,
hashtag whores who measure
friends by user profile,
cliché cuties whacking words
like weeds into mindless memes
and condensations, not seeing
that love with a “u” is
not close to the same thing. 

Yeh, this call for submissions
stings my chords, I guess.
An eight-year-old recently
told me that poetry is the
simple act of writing down
what you care about.
I suppose that’s what 
I’ve done here:
darkened the page with 
the bruises and truths 
I wish I saw no 
reason to write. 

BIO:

David Stones is a poet and performer with some 600 poems in print throughout Canada and internationally, and 30+ poetry awards to his credit. Major collections include Infinite Sequels, sfumato, and Essays of Light. With poetry acclaimed for its expressive and lyrical quality, David is celebrated for the evocative and powerful performance of his work. Stage shows featuring David’s poetry and musical adaptations of his poems include WordSong, Essays of Light, Expressions of Love, Precipice ‘61, and Infinite Sequels (“brilliant and beautiful theatre” - London Free Press). David is also a very active community poetry builder, with poetry workshops, open mic hosting, poetry programs in schools and retirement residences, anthology editing and compilation, and poetry-based special events planning and execution all key aspects of his resume. David is a proud member of The League of Canadian Poets, New Generation Beat Poets Canada, Poetry Stratford, and a Honourary Lifetime Member of The Ontario Poetry Society. David lives and creates in Stratford, Ontario, where he is honoured to be appointed Stratford’s first-ever Poet Laureate for the 2025 - 2028 term.

Published by Asemana Books
Tweets of Love and Protest
A Poetic Inquiry into Writing of Emotions in Social Movements
By
Amir Kalan
ISBN: 978-1-997503-38-5

Part of Amir Kalan’s larger Writing in Times of Crisis project, this book offers an innovative arts based exploration of a pool of Iranian protest tweets, transforming them through a new methodological approach he calls Refractive Poetic Analysis—a form of poetic inquiry between found and generated poetry. Blending insights from sociology, political science, communication, cultural studies, and writing studies, the work reframes emotionally charged digital traces as poetic artifacts that illuminate the affective landscapes of resistance. The volume weaves together a curated sequence of short poems with a reflective methodological chapter, illustrating how poetry can function not only as representation but also as analysis, revealing the collective emotional textures often obscured by platform algorithms. In doing so, the book positions the algorithmically isolated spaces of social media as vital archives and contributes to research creation practices that seek to surface subaltern voices and challenge dominant political narratives.

Amir Kalan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education (DISE) at McGill University. His research interests include critical literacy, multiliteracies, second language writing, intercultural rhetoric, multilingual text generation, and multimodal and digital writing. In his research, he mobilizes mainstream qualitative research and alternative qualitative methods such as narrative inquiry, autoethnography, and visual ethnography to study sociocultural, discursive, political, and power relational contexts of literacy engagement. He is particularly interested in learning from the experiences of minoritized and racialized students in multicultural and multilingual contexts and from non-Western forms of language and literacy education.

--

Endorsement:

This book amplifies voices that risk everything simply to speak their truths. Through drops of resistance, it assembles a river of hope: poetic reflections that form an emotional archive of protest across generations. Tracing decades of repression and uprising in Iran, this collection reveals the interior worlds of those who continue to stand against silence—where love becomes an act of rebellion, memory becomes witness, and language becomes a pathway toward freedom.

These poems are more than words; they are the very consciousness of a people who refuse to be silenced. Emerging from the streets, the screens, and the intimate corners of Iranian life, they carry the weight of dreams, grief, defiance, and imagined freedoms shaped in the shadow, echoing a liberation that is grounded and cultivated within the collective soul of the people.

Dr. Emmanuel Tabi, McGill University

---

To purchase the book via Amazon:
https://a.co/d/0dfZFLto

To purchase the book via Lulu:
https://www.lulu.com/shop/amir-kalan/tweets-of-love-and-protest/paperback/product-w4wpgge.html?page=1&pageSize=4

To read more:
https://asemanabooks.ca/tweets-of-love-and-protest/

“True peace is not merely the absence of tension;

it is the presence of justice.” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

The bombs prefer to drop at night because
they don’t like to be seen before they are felt.
It doesn’t make sense that bombs would be afraid
when they don’t even know the people they kill.

Many bombs have been dropped in the name of justice.
But justice gives safety, freedom, and courage.
Justice is a creative force which nurtures.
Bombs only know how to destroy.

Some people like bombs.
They especially like when bombs are far away.
They somehow don’t realize that a bomb dropped 
anywhere means none of us are safe.

When the last bomb has dropped, and
those who drop them have lost their power
there will be no more need for weapons 
because justice will belong to us all.

Note:

Patrick Connors will read this poem at the upcoming launch of Where Words Defeat Bullets in North York, Ontario, on April 25

BIO:

Patrick Connors first chapbook, Scarborough Songs, was released by Lyricalmyrical Press in 2013, and charted on the Toronto Poetry Map.

Along with Asemana Magazine, he has recently been published in Spadina Literary Review, Tower Poetry, Rabble Review, Paddler Press Spirit Fire Review, and Dissident Voice.

He has performed at the Austin International Poetry Festival; featured in numerous reading series such as The Art Bar, Wild Writers, and Plasticine Poetry; hosted events under the 100,000 Poets for Change banner, as well as the United May Day Committee; and was on the organizing committee for The Great Canadian PoeTrain Tour.

His first full collection, The Other Life, was released in 2021 by Mosaic Press.

His most recent chapbook, Worth the Wait, was released in 2023 by Cactus Press.

His latest collection, The Long Defeat, was released in 2024 by Mosaic Press.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/patrick.j.connors.3

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patjtconnors/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/81912CON

The pale glow of the streetlights cut through the darkness, illuminating a restless tide of wandering passersby in shifting hues.
Inside a motionless car with its headlights off - a blind vessel anchored in the night - a man sat utterly still. Fear, old and sedimented, had settled deep within him, freezing every muscle. His gaze was fixed ahead, as if the world beyond the windshield no longer moved.

In that stillness, his wife’s face rose in his mind - a face that had always carried a trace of gentleness, though that day it had burned red with fury. Her voice still rang in his ears:

“Got fired again?”
He had answered through a fog, almost to himself.
“Yeah… they let me go.”
“Why?”
“It’s the project, you know.”
Her eyes had widened with disbelief.
“Didn’t you say it would end in two months?”
“It’s not up to me. Orders came from above.”
She had turned toward the bedroom, then paused in the doorway, her voice sharp as a blade.
“When the kids come home, what will you tell them?”
Then she slammed the door. Drawers opened and closed behind it - the sound of silent fury.

He had stayed in his chair, hollow, the weight of fifty-five years pressing down on him. Then the phone rang. His boss’s voice came through, smooth and heavy.
“I talked to the board. Since you’re an old hand and close to retirement, you’re reinstated. Those electrodes have been sent back to storage.”

The man could see him clearly in his mind - the boss with his navy suit, polished black shoes, and commanding tone. The shuffling sounds from the bedroom had stopped. His wife must have heard the call. He’d opened the door then, a half-smile tugging at his thick lips - something between apology and relief.
“A new project starts tomorrow,” he had said.

A long car horn jolted him out of memory.
He was back in the dark car, alone. He adjusted the rearview mirror toward his own face - a map of wrinkles carved by time, especially across his forehead and down the bridge of his nose. His hair had turned completely gray. Once, his coworkers had teased him:
“You don’t look your age at all, man. Knock on wood!”

Those words had always pleased him, and he’d spent countless nights before the mirror, checking for any sign of decay.

The passenger door suddenly opened. A tall, heavy woman stepped in - her face unnaturally small and shriveled, thickly coated with makeup that gave her a corpse-like pallor. Her wide, darkened eyelids shimmered in the artificial light.
“Well, handsome. Shall we go?”

He stared at her, bewildered - she’d climbed in uninvited - but his mind still echoed with his boss’s words:
“I’ve got good news for you.”
“Good news, sir?”
“Your retirement papers came through. Sixty years old, thirty years of service - that’s enough.”

The thought of retirement, of sitting at home while the weight of bills crushed him, made him feel as if they were already lowering him into a coffin. He couldn’t imagine life without work.

“I’m not a taxi driver,” he said flatly.
“Who said I’m a passenger, idiot?” she laughed, peeling off her open-front coat.

He glanced at her tattooed arms.
“Get out. I’m not in the mood.”
“Oh, I love rough men,” she said, her eyes sliding downward, a grin twisting her mouth.

Shops were closing; shutters creaked down one after another. The street seemed to fall asleep beneath the awnings. The woman reached over the back of his seat, but he grabbed her hand midair.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I should be asking you that!”
“You’re scared, huh?”
“Get out.”
“I can hear your heart pounding - look, you’re sweating. Try not to wet yourself.”
“You probably don’t even know how many men you’ve slept with, or what diseases you carry.”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. No one catches warts that fast. Want to see my health card?”
“Get out, or I’ll throw you out myself.”
“Scared your wife might find out?”
“Either you walk out alive or I dump your body right here.”

He reached under the seat and pulled out a steering lock.
“Pay me first, then I’ll leave,” she snapped.
“Pay you for what?”
“For tonight’s work.”
“I have a reputation,” he muttered.
“That’s fine - I’ll scream till people come.”

Her face flushed crimson like a fire extinguisher as she began shouting.
People were starting to glance their way, so he started the car and drove.
The woman smiled slyly.
“So, you do want to go somewhere. Got a place in mind?”

He scanned the streets for a quiet corner, turned into a dark alley, and stopped.
“Here?” she asked.
“Either you get out, or I’ll drag you out.”
“Not without my money.”

He opened the door for her.
“Get out.”

Instead, she tore at her clothes, trying to provoke him. He shoved her away; she fell hard against the curb - and didn’t move. He leaned over to close the door, but froze when he saw her head lying at an odd angle, still.

He stepped out. Looked around. No one.
His legs trembled. Cold sweat beaded his forehead. In his mind flashed a dark, narrow future -
Handcuffs. Accusing eyes. A heavy file. A stain upon the final years of his life.

He hesitated - leave her, or take her to the hospital?
At last he lifted her into the back seat, drove past the hospital once, then reversed slowly toward its gate. Through the glass booth, the guards were watching him. Panic surged. When one of them started to step outside, he drove off again, turning into a deserted lane above the hospital.

He got out. No one there - only stray cats rummaging through the trash.
He opened the back door, grabbed her by the shoulders, and began to pull her out.
He had half-lifted her when a hand gripped his shoulder.

He turned -
the guard stood behind him.

Author’s Bio:

Hamid Neasy is a fiction writer from Iran. He was born in October 1964 in Abadan, Khuzestan, and currently resides in Shahin Shahr, Isfahan Province. He has been writing fiction for over eight years and has received several awards and certificates of recognition from short story festivals organized by the Hozeh Honari (Art Center) in Isfahan.
His work has been published in Persian in two collections: *The Dream of Love* and *Petrified Creatures*.

I came to this book through a memory of my own. In February 2011, I was serving as Manager of International Affairs for the Fajr International Theatre Festival in Iran. One section of the festival was connected to the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) jury program, through which international critics were invited to Iran to see performances and take part in the festival’s deliberations. Patricia Keeney, one of the poets in this anthology, and her husband were among the colleagues I invited that year. During their visit, I was with them on Enghelab Street when protests broke out again in the long shadow of the Green Movement, which began after the disputed 2009 presidential election. In February 2011, people returned to the streets in an effort to keep alive the memory of 1,500 protesters killed in a single day. At first, the protest seemed calm. The guards were there, but only watching. Then, in an instant, everything changed. Security forces began firing, the crowd panicked, and we ran for cover. As we ran, Patricia turned to me and asked, “Why do you need theatre?”

She was absolutely right, and in that moment I had no answer. Her question came at a time of terror: bullets flying overhead, people running for shelter, fear everywhere, and nothing feeling secure. In such a moment, it was the most natural question in the world: why art at all when your country is living under terror, censorship, violence, and dictatorship? Why poetry when people are being beaten, arrested, imprisoned, and killed? Why words when power seems to speak only through bullets and fear? And yet, with time, I came to understand that this is precisely when art becomes most necessary. Not because it can stop brutality in the moment, but because it refuses erasure. It keeps memory alive. It gives grief, courage, and truth a form that violence cannot fully destroy. That is one of the reasons Where Words Defeat Bullets matters so deeply.

Edited by Mansour Noorbakhsh and published by Asemana Books, the anthology emerges from a specific historical urgency. It was published in response to the Iranian regime’s violent suppression of the January 2026 protests, including the killing of more than 36,000 people, arrests, censorship, and communication blackouts. At the same time, it places those events within a longer history of repression in Iran, making clear that this book addresses not an isolated moment, but an ongoing condition. It recalls earlier protest movements, censorship, imprisonment, and the targeting of writers and artists, reminding the reader that violence is directed not only at people, but at memory itself.

The anthology grew out of a poetry gathering held in Toronto in February 2026 in support of the people of Iran, and the book extends that gathering onto the page. It carries the immediacy of response, but it also becomes an archive of feeling, conscience, and attention. That origin gives the collection both timeliness and moral force.

One of the anthology’s greatest strengths is that it brings together poets from different countries, backgrounds, and relationships to Iran, without forcing them into a single voice. Many of these poets are not Iranian. They did not have to write about Iran. Yet they chose to respond. They chose not to look away. That matters. In a time when indifference is one of oppression’s quietest victories, attention itself becomes an ethical act.

The poems range widely in tone and approach. Some speak directly and publicly. Others are lyrical, reflective, meditative, historically layered, or intentionally fragmented. Some respond to Iran through direct witness; others through analogy, grief, outrage, or solidarity. What gives the anthology coherence is not a single style, but a shared urgency: the need to speak in the face of violence.

A. F. Moritz’s “Poem for the Iranian Uprising 2026” gives the collection a broad moral frame. Bruce Meyer, Susan Ksiezo-polski, and Bruce Hunter develop that frame in different ways, through warning, moral clarity, and careful attention. Mark McAlister’s “Bullets and Words” engages most directly with the book’s title. It contrasts the apparent force of bullets, described as “precise and efficient,” with words, which the poem calls “tubby,” only to suggest that language endures where violence does not. Olga Stein’s “In Search of Words” moves toward the breakdown of expression, yet still insists that naming can itself be an act of resistance. Cy Strom’s inclusion matters for a related reason: it reminds us that, under repression, even speaking at all can be a form of risk.

Other poems broaden the collection in important ways. Peta-Gaye Nash moves between the intimate and the political, returning repeatedly to the body as a place where memory, grief, and survival are carried. Keith Garebian connects Iran to larger systems of domination. Diana Manole’s “As a child, I loved the dictator” shows how power enters memory, ritual, childhood, and desire, while “Iran needs us, we need Iranian women” turns more openly toward solidarity without losing its urgency.

Patrick Connors brings another kind of range. His poems create a wider political field shaped by democracy, exclusion, violence, and endurance. Patricia Keeney’s “Out of Iran,” for me, remains central. Its strength lies in its honesty. It does not try to simplify what it encounters. Instead, it records beauty, tension, hospitality, fear, and contradiction, while recognizing that witnessing is never neutral.

Brenda Clews breaks language apart, refusing smooth coherence in order to reflect the way violence itself shatters form. Brett Campbell strips away heroism and leaves the reader with damage and aftermath. John Oughton’s “For Hafiz of Shiraz” reminds us that Iran is not only a site of present political suffering, but also a place shaped by a deep poetic and cultural inheritance. Peter Taylor turns destruction inward, suggesting that history is not simply something behind us, but something carried within the self.

Through repetition and accumulation, Josephine LoRe’s “A Single Leaf” gathers fragility and endurance until the poem itself seems to become “a single leaf / falling from a tree,” light and breakable, yet impossible to ignore. I. B. Iskov questions the adequacy of language, while Lynn Xu returns insistently to memory and loss. Hiram Larew moves between humor, absurdity, and civic urgency, suggesting that even small acts of speech and refusal still matter.

As the anthology continues, more voices enter and expand its emotional and political range. Sylvia Petter’s “Sticks and Stones” offers one of the clearest statements of the book’s central argument. Claudia Piccinno confronts violence directly. Emil Nicolae works through image, parable, and mythic suggestion. Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews, Elizabeth Barnes, and Elana Wolff each bring distinctive forms of restraint and witness, while Mahdi Ganjavi’s poems return directly to Iran, not as an abstraction, but as a lived and remembered reality.

Mbizo Chirasha, Niels Hav, Richard Harrison, Eva Petropoulou Lianou, Antje Stehn, Stephen Kent Roney, PJ Yukon, Kelly Kaur, Chris Wanamaker, Anne Sorbie, George Elliott Clarke, and Mansour Noorbakhsh further widen the anthology’s reach. Their poems vary greatly in tone and method: some are mournful, some defiant, some visionary, some satirical, and some achieve their force through simplicity, using spare language and few words. George Elliott Clarke’s “Morality Police Manual” is especially striking in its bitter irony and rhetorical force, while PJ Yukon’s “THIS IS NOT A HOLY WAR” speaks with blunt moral outrage. Kelly Kaur emphasizes collective resistance through repetition. Chris Wanamaker imagines endurance in the face of annihilation. Anne Sorbie and Mansour Noorbakhsh return the anthology to its central concerns: mourning, resilience, and the possibility of transformation under pressure.

What becomes increasingly clear is that the anthology does not belong to any single poetic language or tradition. It brings together voices that move in different directions and sometimes even contradict one another, yet remain joined by a shared urgency. Some poets address Iran directly; others approach it through parallel histories, exile, memory, or the recognition that violence is never confined to one place. This breadth is one of the book’s greatest strengths. It allows the anthology to hold many forms of witness without reducing them to a single voice.

What makes the collection especially moving is that it does not reduce Iran to one image or one emotion. Alongside grief and anger, it makes room for tenderness, admiration, humility, and deep respect for those who continue to live and create under pressure. The strongest poems do not treat Iran as an object of pity. They recognize it as a place of dignity, history, culture, and endurance.

What I value most in Where Words Defeat Bullets is that the poets do not try to speak for Iranians. They speak toward Iran, with care, seriousness, and feeling. The best poems are marked not only by outrage, but also by humility. They mourn the dead, while honoring the living. They do not erase suffering, but neither do they overlook courage.

That is why the title, which may at first sound idealistic, becomes convincing by the end. Words do not stop bullets at the moment they are fired, but they outlast them. They preserve memory, resist erasure, cross borders, and gather others. Sylvia Petter expresses this with memorable clarity in “Sticks and Stones,” when she writes that words “cannot be grasped and shot.” The line stays with the reader because it captures, with simplicity and force, the anthology’s central claim.

This anthology reveals not only the endurance of language, but the responsibility it bears. These poems speak not because they can undo events, but because silence would mean surrendering meaning itself. What remains is not an answer, but a stance: to go on naming, remembering, and addressing others, even when being heard is uncertain.

Reviewers Bio:

Katayoun Salmasi is a critic, dramaturg, and director. She has published widely on literary works and serves on the editorial board of Critical Stages/Scènes critiques. She holds a Ph.D. in Theatre Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Gordon Phinn—editor, critic, novelist, and poet based in Oakville, Ontario—had been writing and publishing since the appearance of his first poetry collection Lyrical Shifts in 1975. After arriving in Canada from Scotland in 1968 as a teenager, he devoted himself to building a profound engagement with Canadian and North American literature and politics. Over the decades, he published extensively across genres, including memoir (Moving Through Many Dimensions), criticism (It’s All About Me, Bowering and McFadden, Laughing At The Universe Of Lies), and numerous poetry collections, most recently Spring, Summer and the Seduction of Eternity. His forthcoming works include Joy In All Genres, a collection of essays and reviews from his years at WordCity, and an edited volume on Laurence Hutchman to be published by Guernica Editions in 2026.

Asemana Magazine had the honor of publishing seven of Gordon’s poems, one article, and one book review. Three of these works appeared in our very first issue, marking the inception of the journal, and two more were published as recently as April 1. His presence was woven into our beginnings and continued to shape our pages with generosity, insight, and care.

His passing is a profound loss—not only to us, but to the broader literary community. We remember with gratitude his unwavering support, his thoughtful engagement, and his kindness.

To honor his legacy, we are republishing the three poems that appeared in our inaugural issue.

We extend our deepest condolences to his family, friends, and all those in the literary world who were touched by his life and work.

Right

We laughed at those lies

Because they were, after all,

Issued during an election campaign.

-

We overlooked those lies

Because they were only a slogan

In a cute video with puppies.

-

We ignored those lies, because

Putin will improve with age, or

So the pundits persuade.

-

We absorbed those lies because,

After all, it was another war where

Truth is always the first casualty.

-

We let slip those lies because

We sussed she was filing for the

Divorce the billionaire would barely notice.

-

We fell for those lies because

Priests, after all, are somewhere

Closer to God than sin.

-

We understood the necessity of those lies

As national security was called into play

By the very players themselves.

-

We excused those lies because fraud

Is so rampant and basically unavoidable

As the vicious emerge victorious.

-

We passed on her lies because

We know she’s a control freak bitch

Bossing her platoon of kids.

-

We learn to live with those lies

Because politicos cannot resist, and

Besides, we have our own lives to live.

-

We pay lip service to those lies

Because they keep us safe from

The predators supposedly prowling.

-

Of course their lies are not persuasive

As we proudly preen about the precious

Stoner puppies pitching in their basket.

-

We ignore those lies screamed by fanatics

As they massacre for their message

Because we know in our hearts they are

-

Wrong, just as they know they are right.

*******************************

Coast

Which war, which lie,

Which weeks in the sun

Coerced in having fun?

-

Who’s guilt, who’s gone,

Who’s rights being wronged

Is the chorus of the song.

-

Why me, why now,

The month was a monster

And the take truly awesome.

-

Where next, who cares

When couldn’t care less

Looks like the smart move.

-

Senseless violence, stupid joy,

Just a few on offer when

The coffers need cramming.

-

Couldn’t we, shouldn’t we,

Wish on a star

Winking from afar.

-

Maybe laws, maybe justice

Jangled in front of juries

Just in from the coast.

**************************************

Know

Going rogue means

Making up your own lies

-

Instead of reading them

From a teleprompter, while

-

The intern who wrote them

Waits patiently for praise and

-

A bigger paycheque. Overlooking

The actual story to a more

-

Nuanced narrative quickly

Becomes the norm, while

-

Navigating the rapids of your

Fan base’s religion reminds you

-

Of just why you assumed the

Mantle of righteous reformer

-

In the first place. No-one now

Doubts you’ve made a difference

-

Trading one set of slogans for another,

At least no-one in the know.

*********

State and sub-state actors
Inhibit our access to the actual,

Often, if not in fact, always,
As diplomats and emissaries

Cover for spies, hit-men and
Commandoes, who slink in shiny shadows

Between subject and object, an aroma 
Of aftershave at the cafe table,

The sip of expresso, the snap of biscotti
Calling to the stylist surveying the

Remains of her shift, chuckling at her
Boyfriend's suspicions of conspiracies

Snaking through the reports, as
Stern as they are smouldering.

No Doubt

Regardless of my rep in the cover-up's exposure,
I was, in fact, only one of his lackeys, and

Far from the prince of the pecking order,
Just simply positioned to stamp out any

Fires deemed to be more inconvenient than
Useful.  I was possessed of an uncanny

Ability to place the feet just right.  DNA
They smirked, and I thought, not likely.

Thirty years on when they told me, -
Just a kid caught up in kidland, too

Careless to be confined to the cult of adults.
The games went on without me, until I got

Inducted: A package I was asked to hand
Over as drinks and snacks were shared,

Those knowing grins and snifters of gestures,
Then a dignified exit leaving no doubt.

Author’s Bio:

Gordon Phinn, an editor, critic, novelist and poet living in Oakville, Ontario, has been writing and publishing since his first poetry book Lyrical Shifts in 1975. After arriving in Canada from Scotland in 1968 as a teenager he set about acquiring a foundation in Canadian and North American literature and politics. Many books and ebooks have seen the light over the decades, the most recent of which are the memoir Moving Through Many Dimensions, the critical works ‘It’s All About Me’ (essays for Books in Canada and Paragraph), ‘Bowering and McFadden’ (critical appreciations), ‘Laughing At The Universe Of Lies’ (essays), much poetry, the newest being ‘Spring, Summer and the Seduction of Eternity’. Upcoming is his collected essays and reviews from a four year stint at WordCity, ‘Joy In All Genres’. He is also currently editing a volume of essays and appreciations on the work of Laurence Hutchman to be published by Guernica Editions in 2026.

As a contributor to the anthology, I read the collection from both an internal and critical perspective. This dual position makes especially visible the tension at the heart of the project: between witnessing and representation, solidarity and specificity, global circulation and situated knowledge.

The anthology’s premise—articulated in its title and reinforced in Noorbakhsh’s foreword—is deceptively simple: words endure where violence seeks erasure. Yet the poems themselves complicate this claim. They do not merely oppose bullets with words; rather, they document how words are shaped by proximity to violence, censorship, exile, and memory. The collection thus operates as an archive—not bureaucratic, but affective—where fragments, testimonies, and metaphors preserve what cannot be officially recorded, especially under conditions of imperial and state repression and media blackout.

Several poems explicitly stage this archival function. Olga Stein’s “In Search of Words” dramatizes the impossibility of adequate language in the face of atrocity, yet proceeds to list names—“Bahar, Asal, Adam…”—transforming poetry into a mnemonic device that resists disappearance. Similarly, Lynn Xu’s poems on Tiananmen Square and memory extend Iran’s present into a longer global history of suppressed uprisings, suggesting that poetry circulates as a transnational repository of unresolved political trauma. These works do not simply describe events; they insist on remembrance as an ethical act that builds the future.

At the same time, the anthology resists reducing Iran to a singular narrative of suffering. One of its most striking features is the way global poets situate the Iranian uprising within broader geographies of violence and resistance. Poems move between Tehran, Chile under Pinochet, Tiananmen Square, Indigenous communities in Canada, and sites of war from Dresden to Syria. Josephine LoRe’s expansive “A Single Leaf” is exemplary here, collapsing multiple histories into a single poetic continuum, where Iran becomes one node in a recurring pattern of institutional brutality and human resilience. This comparative poetics does not dilute Iran’s specificity; it situates it within a shared, if uneven, global condition.

This is where the anthology’s diasporic and international composition becomes crucial. The presence of poets from diverse linguistic, cultural, and political contexts transforms the collection into a site of what might be called “global witnessing” and “transnational attunement.” Bruce Meyer’s transnational exchange between Mumbai and North America, or Mbizo Chirasha’s African-centered critique of failed revolutions, reframe Iran not as an isolated crisis but as part of a planetary struggle over freedom, memory, and narrative control. In this sense, the anthology enacts what it argues: that poetry can traverse borders even when bodies and information cannot.

Yet this globality is not without tension. Some poems risk abstraction, where “freedom” becomes a universalized motif detached from the specificities of Iranian history and political structure—a move that can inadvertently flatten the very conditions the anthology seeks to illuminate. This tension, however, may be intrinsic to the project itself. The anthology does not aim for a unified voice but embraces heterogeneity—a polyphonic, transnational archive in which the friction between local specificity and global solidarity becomes part of its meaning.

The contributions by Iranian and Iranian diasporic poets anchor this polyphony. My contributions to it, for instance, articulate a deeply internal critique of naming, state discourse, and the bureaucratization of identity (“Today I became… a file, / with a red cover and many names”). In “Freedom is an Iranian garden,” a culturally grounded metaphor resists both Western liberal abstractions and state-imposed definitions, rooting freedom in historical, ecological, and spatial imaginaries specific to Iranian experience. These poems underscore a central tenet of the collection: while global poetry can witness Iran, it cannot replace the epistemic authority of those embedded in its histories.

Formally, the anthology ranges from lyric reflection to documentary poetics, from minimalist fragments to extended narrative pieces. This formal diversity reinforces the idea of poetry as archive: different forms capture different dimensions of experience—grief, rage, irony, memory, testimony. Mark McAlister’s “Bullets and Words” explicitly theorizes this relationship, suggesting that while bullets aim for closure, words open beginnings. This conceptual reversal underlies much of the collection.

Ultimately, Where Words Defeat Bullets demonstrates that global poetry does not merely respond to historical events; it participates in their afterlives. It preserves, refracts, and sometimes contests the meanings of those events. In contexts where regimes attempt to control narratives—through censorship, violence, and erasure—poetry becomes a secondary but vital site of history-making.

The anthology succeeds in articulating a powerful claim: that poetry can function as a dispersed, transnational archive of resistance—not an archive of closure, but of ongoing interpretation. It invites readers not only to witness Iran’s history, but to understand their own position within its global reverberations.

At the same time, global poetic renderings do not remain external to Iranian experience; they circulate back into Persian and diasporic poetics, providing new formal repertoires, linguistic registers, and historical analogies through which the uprising is reimagined and rearticulated.

In this sense, the book’s title is less a declaration than a question: not whether words can defeat bullets, but how—and for whom—they continue to matter in the aftermath of violence and the ongoing struggle over its meaning.

Bio

Mahdi Ganjavi is a university professor, poet, and publisher. He specializes in Middle Eastern studies, the history of knowledge during the Cold War, the history of education, and print culture. Ganjavi currently teaches at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto. His book, Education and the Cultural Cold War: The Franklin Book Program in Iran, was published by I.B. Tauris. In the realm of creative literature, Ganjavi has published two short story collections, one novel, and five poetry collections. The Galaxy Has No Memory of Sunset is Ganjavi’s fifth poetry collection. He also published The Strangers Who Live in Me with Asemana Books, as well as three earlier collections: And You Place Etcetera in the Middle of My Life (Jamedaran Publishing, 2009), Words that Fill the Etcetera (Arooz Electronic Publishing, 2009), and And the Trivial Feelings (Roozbehani Electronic Publishing, 2011).

WHERE WORDS DEFEAT BULLETS

An Anthology

Poems for Iranian People and Their 2026 Uprising

Compiled by

Mansour Noorbakhsh

Featuring poems by:

Albert Moritz, Bruce Meyer, Susan Ksiezopolski, Bruce Hunter, Mark McAlister, Olga Stein, Cy Strom, Peta-Gaye Nash, Keith Garebian, Diana Manole, Patrick Connors, Patricia Keeney, Brenda Clews, Brett Campbell, John Oughton, Peter Taylor, Josephine LoRe, I.B. Iskov, Lynn Xu, Hiram Larew, Sylvia Petter, Claudia Piccinno, Emil Nicolae, Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews Elizabeth Barnes, Elana Wolff, Mahdi Ganjavi, Mbizo Chirasha, Niels Hav, Richard Harrison, EVA Petropoulou Lianou, Antje Stehn, Stephen Kent Roney, PJ Yukon, Kelly Kaur, Chris Wanamaker, Anne Sorbie, George Elliot Clarke

Where Words Defeat Bullets is born from a moment of profound grief and unyielding courage. In January 2026, as peaceful protesters in Iran were met with violence, silence was imposed through internet shutdowns, and countless lives were taken or forever altered, poets refused to let truth be buried. Gathering in solidarity in Toronto—and joined by others who later added their voices—these writers transformed mourning into language, and language into resistance. This anthology stands as a testament to the belief that even in the darkest hours, words can rise where weapons fall.

This collection affirms the enduring power of poetry to confront tyranny and defend human dignity. The poems in this volume do not answer violence with violence; they answer it with memory, conscience, and humanity. Where Words Defeat Bullets is both a tribute to those who have suffered and a declaration that expression cannot be extinguished.

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