** "I swear it to you on my common woman's head, the common woman is as common as a common loaf of bread--and will rise." Judy Grahn from The Common Woman
Ululation
At Real Toads, Kenia introduces us to the landai form and
invites us to “write a bunch” of them.
Only five out of 100 women in Afghanistan graduate from high school;
most are married by the age of 16. For many, poetry allows them to
express themselves. It's the only voice they have, but women writing
poetry is seen as shameful and could result in a beating or even death,
reason why they have to rely on pen names.
Women write and recite landai, two-line folk poems that can often
be humorous, sexy, raging, tragic and also deal with love,
grief, war, exile and Afghan independence. The success of the poetry
form is attributed to it being easy to memorize, which is really
important in a culture where women are poorly schooled and forbidden to
write or read.
The word
landai means “short, poisonous snake” in
Pashto. The poems are collective — no single person writes a
landai;
a woman repeats one, shares one. It is hers and not hers.
“Landai belong to women,” Safia Siddiqi, a renowned Pashtun
poet and former Afghan parliamentarian, said. “In Afghanistan, poetry is the women’s movement from the
inside."
.
Please go to this New York Times article to learn more about lanai, the eloquent poetry of resistance of the Afghan women:
Ululation
*for Zarmina
Cut out my tongue, my voice
becomes a slender insect’s song.
Now the night is ripe with music
Is there anyone who can still sleep?
In the hills my sisters are waking.
the sky swells to
contain their grief.
A storm gathers, women open their throats
a cloud passes in front of the sun.
Under this burqa, I am invisible. Nobody sees
the brown leg of sorrow or the contour of my wings.
My secret wish. Simply this. That my daughters
find these shards of my heart and can make no sense of them!
Written for Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads , “landai”.
* Rahila was the name used by a young poet, Zarmina, who
committed suicide two years ago. Zarmina was reading her love poems over
the phone when her sister-in-law caught her. “How many lovers do you
have?” she teased. Zarmina’s family assumed there was a boy on the other
end of the line. As a punishment, her brothers beat her and ripped up
her notebooks, Amail said. Two weeks later, Zarmina set herself on fire.
** "The Common Woman" by Judy Grahn - A classic of the second wave feminist movement, published in
the form of a pamphlet. I bought my copy
at Old Wives Tales bookstore in San Francisco and it was passed from friend to friend.
