Afghan Women's Poetry



I have received permission to share poems and essays with you from The Sky is a Nest of Swallows.  It is a collection by Afghan Women Writers. Having written some poems about their plight, the first thing that struck me is that I hit the nail on the head as to how they perceived their situations. Women are women all over the world. I tried to write for them, but they write so much better for themselves!

If these don’t win a Pulitzer, I will be shocked. It is my honor to share these courageous poets with you. The rights of women are so closely intertwined with helping baby girls. Until women of all ages are respected and nurtured, no women will be free.

I have summarized the the Introduction to the book below.

INTRODUCTION

The Afghan Women’s Writing Project started as a kitchen table idea in a Brooklyn brownstone, a half a world away from the forbidding ranges of Hindu Kush, the arid poppy-fields of Kandahar, the Kabul roads where cars compete for space with burqa-clad women, donkeys and dust.  The seed planted, though a decade earlier, when I first saw the grim image of an Afghan woman named Zarmeena being executed by the Taliban in Kabul’s Ghazi Stadium for allegedly killing her husband. Though a videotape of her Nov.16, 1999 death was smuggled from the country, all that was known of her was that she had seven children and that her husband’s family, mysteriously, had forgiven her.

This sobering blackout of information felt like a gauntlet thrown down for us all.  Not only were women hidden beneath burqas, I realized, but their narratives were silenced. What little the outside world knew of what they endured through decades of war and years of oppressive Taliban rule seeped out only through the media or their men. Their own cries and laughter, laments and celebrations were as if swallowed by wind.  That seemed a terrifying erasure, and a violation of human rights.

AWWP was founded in May 2008 to encourage and nurture Afghan women as they explore the power of their voice.

It has allowed us to see through the haze of war and of differences in culture and tradition to the amazing women of Afghanistan.

Pabot, Susannah E., comp. The Sky Is a Nest of Swallows. First ed. Belleville, 2012.
You may purchase the book at Amazon or from the link above.

Stay tuned for some of the most amazing poetry you will ever read! To be posted on www.milliongirls.blogspot.com under Afghan Women’s Poetry. Note I am personally retyping all this so any typos should be blamed on me. 

You are reading 100 Million Girls.
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Read My Poems on the Reddish Stream of my Blood


Read My Poems on the Reddish Stream of My Blood
                           
by Emaam*

 I want to write.  I want to write about
My dreams which never come true,
My power that has always been ignored,
My voice which is never heard by this deaf universe,
My rights which have never been counted,
My life decisions which are always made by others.
Oh, my destiny, give me the answer, what am I for in this universe?
What does it mean to be an Afghan woman?
Hmmm, I know you can’t provide me with an elegant answer so
Just give me the pen, the hidden pen
So that I can write, that is all I am asking for!

I promise I will take revenge, but not like men
By gun and sword and aggression,
Instead I will write.
I will write even if I am warned not to touch a pen or paper,
I know one thing, that they can’t see that hidden pen with their
Blind eyes, no matter how strong their vision.
My eyes will read my environment, my brain will save the details,
And I will write with the hidden pen on the chambers of my heart,
So that when I am caught and executed,
Perhaps in Ghazi stadium like other innocent Afghan women,
People will read my poems on the reddish stream of my blood.
I will start writing with the hidden pen, and
I know this will lead to a day when girls of this land will be able
To write with chalk on the blackboards of the school
Or by markers on the whiteboards of universities,
And one day they will make their voice heard-
Then the hidden pen will be remembered forever!

* All names have been changed to protect the women.

I hope you leave comments below so the Afghan Women Writer's Project can relay them to the writers!

Pabot, Susannah E., comp.The Sky Is a Nest of Swallows. First ed. Belleville, 2012.
Afghan Women Writer's Project: http://awwproject.org/

You are reading 100 Million Girls.
Stay tuned for some of the most amazing poetry you will ever read!
Please follow the blog at  www.milliongirls.blogspot.com

You may Like the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/100milliongirls.com
On Twitter @100milliongirls






Sky is a Nest of Swallows
by Zainab

She was born in Iran and grew up with Iranian culture and language.  A flower needs soil to grow and for her, that soil was Iranian.  But her parents were Afghan immigrants—refugees--and life was very hard.  Privation, prejudice, strangeness: these were daily problems.  
She never thought it easy or even possible to separate the flower from its soil—to say, “That soil is barbarian with you growing in it.  It doesn’t know you! It doesn’t like you!  Go! Go to another place…” So she could not believe Iran would persuade Afghan people to return to their country.  She felt herself an Iranian girl in language, style, and culture.  She could not face returning to a country she knew nothing of except that people said that she was from here.  She thought Iran was her home, her soil, but she was wrong.

The family finally left everything in Iran and came to Kabul. So many people had said goodbye to Afghanistan but they returned to say hello, to say:  “Hey, wake up! It is now time to recover, to refresh, to stand up for us who came back for you.”
During the first months, everything was new and life was good.  Her family pumped water from a well and looked at this as useful exercise.  Prices seemed cheaper because of the different currency, and they felt more affluent.  When there wasn’t enough fare for a bus or taxi they were happy to ride the rickshaw, though it was dangerous and the rickshaw ride on Kabul’s bumpy Charquila Road was like a theme park ride.
One month, two month, three…a whole year passed, and by then things had grown boring. It seemed they had regressed ten years or more.  It was no longer acceptable to waste energy and time extracting water from a well for washing clothes and dishes, instead of with piped water.  The noise from the neighborhood kids became intolerable when the girl wanted to study.  And in winter, she hated the snow, rain, and wind.  The girl who used to love the wind whiplashing her hair!
She had changed.  The mud and slosh, the dust and pollution in the street made getting around, having electricity, and getting water much harder.  Father’s struggle to break wood for fuel and his trembling in the cold also changed her.  Her tears when the wood was finished and there was no money to buy more—all of this changed her interests, ideas, even her appearance. She was now shy and her hands were black and wrinkled from the cold and dirty water of the well.  She looked much older than her age.  She endured her father’s unemployment too.  He had worked as a welder in Iran and he was covered with cuts and rashes that she sometimes had to soothe for him with pomades.  So although they had less money in Afghanistan, she was glad her father’s skin could heal.  But he was ashamed about not working.  He decided that an illegal return to Iran was the only solution.
She wanted the whole family to return to Iran but they didn’t have visas so it was impossible.  Only her dad went.  They had never been separated more than a week.  How could they tolerate this?  God, how?
His hands were saints for her.  She kissed them, these hands, which had taught her sacrifice and zeal.  He lifted her head, looked into her eyes, and said, “Your father is strong, but do you know what my real power is? It is the hope of seeing my daughter in white doctor’s cloth.  You will make me proud.  Remember this!
**
My father returned to Iran, that alien place.  He returned because Afghanistan was also alien, both for me and for him.  I will never forget how the Iranian people scoffed: Hey Afghan!  Hey stranger! And I will never forget how the Afghan people, my people, also scoffed: Hey Iranian! Hey stranger! Neither country could provide fertile soil for our whole family.
It has been years since we returned to Afghanistan and I am still looking for my nationality.  I’m still hoping for a piece of this earth where my family can sit down together.  But my father has not returned.  Sometimes I become sad and whisper, “God, I feel so poor not to have a home on any part of your earth!”  At once a voice responds: “Don’t be sad. You are more like a swallow than a flower.  Swallows have no lifelong nest on earth.  The sky is their nest.  Do not worry. Reach for the sky!”


Pabot, Susannah E., comp. The Sky Is a Nest of Swallows. First ed. Belleville, 2012.
Afghan Women Writer's Project: http://awwproject.org/ 

I hope you leave comments below so the Afghan Women Writer's Project can relay them to the writers.

Stay tuned for some of the most amazing poetry you will ever read! To be posted on
One Million Girls, please Follow- www.milliongirls.blogspot.com

You may also follow the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/100milliongirls
On Twitter @100milliongirls


Let me Grow Up





Let Me Grow Up
by Shogofa

Let me grow up
Let me talk
I have lots of words
Let me walk, so I may run and feel the earth
I am a prisoner
Let me see the world, share my pain with all
Let me tell how
I am a prisoner for long time
I have wishes
I have dreams as a human being
Let me reach the dreams
I lost in war
More than dreams,
I lost my identity
Where is it? How can I find it?
I have been a prison for a long time
Let me see the world
Why must I stay in a cage?
The victim of so many rules.
Le me come out from my cage
See the garden of heaven
I am for living, not for beating
I am human being before being an Afghan woman
I have been prisoner for a long time
Let me have my life.

Pabot, Susannah E., comp. The Sky Is a Nest of Swallows. First ed. Belleville, 2012.
Afghan Women Writer's Project: http://awwproject.org/


Stay tuned for some of the most amazing poetry you will ever read! To be posted on
One Million Girls, please Follow- www.milliongirls.blogspot.com

You may also follow the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/100milliongirls
On Twitter @100milliongirls




The Burqa
by Meena Y.

Navy blue, long and baggy
Top and bottom with different designs of flowers
Hanging outside the shop along with other white and green ones
Swinging in the cold wind of Kabul winter.
Swinging tiredly and wondering about the woman who would own it
Maybe the one who would wear it unwillingly
Cursing herself for being born a woman
Complaining about her inability to see or move freely.
Swinging right and left, the burqa remained wondering
Whose face would it hide?
Whose identity would it take?


Pabot, Susannah E., comp. The Sky Is a Nest of Swallows. First ed. Belleville, 2012.
Afghan Women Writer's Project: http://awwproject.org/

I hope you leave comments below so the Afghan Women Writer's Project can relay them to the writers.

Stay tuned for some of the most amazing poetry you will ever read! To be posted on
One Million Girls, please Follow- www.milliongirls.blogspot.com

You may also follow the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/100milliongirls
On Twitter @100milliongirls

You might also like to visit my other blog, Poet on Poetry, www.poetonpoetry.blogspot.com




Take My Hands
by Norwan

Where can I talk?
Where can I tell my untold stories?
              Where
              Where
              Where
I speak from under my burqa
I am not allowed to speak aloud
I am an Afghan woman
I breathe poisons.
I am not allowed to breathe the fresh air you breathe
I look outside the window of my burqa
It seems as if there is
No hope
No light
I see nothing but hopeless dreams
I see nothing but
            Darkness
            Darkness
            Darkness
It seems as if the doors of victory are closed
            Locked
            Locked
            Locked
There is no door in the jungle of wild thought.
I want a light to see my way
I want nothing else but
to live the way I want to live
to live the way I deserve.
I want to release myself
From the prison of a voiceless land.
From the tribe of silent
            Dead
            Burned, women
Help me.
Take my hands.
It is not written in my destiny
To burn myself.
Can you hear me?
I am a voice of my dead silent generation
I speak from under my burqa
I am not allowed to speak aloud
            Where can I talk?
            Where can I tell my untold stories?
Where can I buy a light?


Pabot, Susannah E., comp. The Sky Is a Nest of Swallows. First ed. Belleville, 2012.
Afghan Women Writer's Project: http://awwproject.org/
Available on Amazon


Stay tuned for some of the most amazing poetry you will ever read! To be posted on
One Million Girls, please Follow- www.milliongirls.blogspot.com

You may also follow the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/100milliongirls
On Twitter @100milliongirls

I also have a poetry blog, Poet on Poetry, www.poetonpoetry.com


TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 2012


How Can I Hide My Sorrow?




How Can I Hide My Sorrow?
            By Farahnaz

I am an Afghan girl,
Tears in my eyes, pen in hand,
Writing from my heart.

That heart, full of sorrow,
Pain, grief, sores,
How can I hid my sorrow?

No one understands me
Or feels my sadness.
No one smoothes ointment on my wounds.

How can I hide the sorrow
That fills me,
When my heart is
Exploding
            Exploding
                        Exploding




Pabot, Susannah E., comp. The Sky Is a Nest of Swallows. First ed. Belleville, 2012.
Afghan Women Writer's Project: http://awwproject.org/
Available on Amazon

You are reading: One Million Girls, please help support the blog by Following-www.milliongirls.blogspot.com 
You may also follow the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/100milliongirls
I post articles and information about women and children almost daily on the Facebook page.
On Twitter @100milliongirls 
 I also have a poetry blog, Poet on Poetrywww.poetonpoetry.com

FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012


Baad-An Essay by an Afghan Woman



Baad
by Salma

Fatima was playing with her friend and cousin in her grandfather’s lovely flower-covered garden.  As she caught sight of many older villagers entering the house, she thought that her father must be throwing a party.  She had no idea that her family was busy making the most important decision of her young life.

At just 14 years old, Fatima was a very pretty and innocent girl with beautiful eyes.  What Fatima did not know was that her brother had ruined her life.  He had killed a neighbor’s son, and Fatima would pay the price.  The villagers had decided Fatima would have to marry Jan Mohammed, a man who was thirty years older.  She was to pay for the price of baad, an Afghan tribal tradition that involved giving a victim’s family a member-usually a girl-of the offending family.

When Fatima’s family told her the news, she cried a lot.  She knew she was a victim of her brother’s crime and she did not have a choice.  If she refused to marry Jan Mohammed, then her brother or other family member would be killed.  This would continue until all were killed.  Fatima hoped she would get lucky.  Sometimes in the case of baad, in-laws can be nice.  Most of the time, though, new brides were treated as servants.

On her wedding day, despite the fact that Fatima was a beautiful bride, she was sad and worried about her future.  But to her surprise, Fatima found Jan Muhammad’s family was very nice to her. Jan Muhammad was smitten by Fatima’s beauty and fell in love with her.  Soon Fatima returned Jan Muhammad’s feelings and fell in love with him too. After a year of marriage, a baby was born.  Fatima’s new family was very happy that they had their first grandson.  They named him Ahmad.  Ahmad was as handsome as Fatima was beautiful.

But Fatima’s happiness with her new baby and family was to be interrupted.  One night in a bombing, Fatima lost her family-her brother, sister, father and mother all died.  What saved her from complete sadness was Ahmad, watching him grow and learn new things day by day.  Ahmad kept her busy.

When Ahmad was three years old, Fatima’s second child Lila was born.  Lila had beautiful blue eyes and blond curly hair.  Fatima’s sadness over the loss of her family receded as she was loved by her children and husband.

One day during the time of the Taliban, Jan Muhammad left the house for his work.  That was the last day of his life. The Taliban killed him.

Fatima cried with her in-laws at the loss of her husband and their son.  But her in-laws were so upset they told Fatima this was her fault.  She was bad luck.  She had married their son because they had lost another son.  They told Fatima that she was in their house because of baad.  So they told Fatima they never wanted to see her again.  She was to leave with her children and never return.

Fatima was a 19-year-old woman with a five-year-old son and a year-old daughter.  She had no place to go.  She went to her uncle’s house and asked him for help.  Her uncle took her in, but Fatima soon found out he had plans for her.

Fatima’s uncle found a man who would buy Fatima but not her children, because he did not want his family to know that Fatima had previously married and her children were not part of the deal, Fatima fell into a deep depression. She begged and pleaded with her uncle.  She did not want to be married again.  She could not live without her children.  But her uncle had taken the money and did not want to give it back.

Twice, Fatima tried to kill herself, but did not succeed either time.

As Fatima’s desolation deepened, her uncle’s family held many discussions and decided that they would adopt Ahmad.  This was a monetary decision.  In two years, Ahmad would be seven years old and would be able to work on the street and make money for them.

But no one wanted Lila. She was a girl and considered useless, too young to work and too young to sell for marriage. 

Finally Lila was sold to someone from a European country as an adoption.  As Fatima was separated from her children, she cried and screamed.  No one listened to her voice.




Pabot, Susannah E., comp. The Sky Is a Nest of Swallows. First ed. Belleville, 2012.
Afghan Women Writer's Project: http://awwproject.org/
Also available on Amazon

You are reading: One Million Girls, please help support the blog by Following- www.milliongirls.blogspot.com 
You may also follow the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/100milliongirls 
I post information and articles about women and children around the world almost daily on the FB page.

Find me on Twitter @100milliongirls
 I also have a poetry blog, Poet on Poetry, www.poetonpoetry.com



A Father's Choice
      by Nadia


Once upon a time there was a large family with ten members.  There were so poor they couldn't live normally. Sometimes they didn't have any food to eat.  In this family, only the father could work because the children were small, and couldn't work.  The father didn't know what he should do.  He couldn't buy food and clothes for their children.

One day he met a man who had a drugstore.  He told him about his life.  The man gave him a suggestion.

At first the father got sad and refused to consider it.  But when he came home the poor man saw his children who were waiting for their father to bring them some food. But he had come home with empty hands.  The children became desperate.

The man sat in the corner of the room and thought about his friend's speech. "You have eight children and can sell the kidney of one of them and get a lot of money."

The man could not sleep.  The next morning when his friend opened his drugstore, the man went ot him and told him his decision.  The next day his friend took one of his children and they went to the doctor.

The boy was so afraid when they went to the doctor's room.  After an hour the doctor came out and said, "We could take the kidney but we couldn't help the boy.  Unfortunately, he died."


Pabot, Susannah E., comp. The Sky Is a Nest of Swallows. First ed. Belleville, 2012.
Afghan Women Writer's Projecthttp://awwproject.org/
Available on Amazon
You are reading: One Million Girls, please help support the blog by Following-www.milliongirls.blogspot.com
You may also follow the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/100milliongirls
I post articles and information about girls and women almost daily on the Facebook page.
On Twitter @100milliongirls
I also have a poetry blog, Poet on Poetrywww.poetonpoetry.com



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