Collection 1

Rênas Jiyan

The 1st collection, at the window, the first of morning, this spark, from the flash of a spark, in its light
Kids took photographs, tasting a shaved ice, smelling round bread baked in winter.

You woke up just now and
You, as if wounded somewhere,
You, with all your might, stared at that wound
You looked at the snow,
You who, just like snow, come in abundance at night
And suddenly, in early morning, make everywhere white
Sleeping with you more is even more pleasing than
Considering snow at the window
You who wash your face with snow
On an empty stomach

A snowflake conceived you
You are snow
I am snow
am snow
am snow
Oh, oh, grace, oh, oh, grace
Your mouth is steaming, a fresh cup of coffee
 
Did I not say?
If not for you, no one would eat shaved ice
If not for you, kids wouldn’t catch starlings and skylarks
You are snow as
snow is . . .

translated from the Kurmanci by Zêdan Xelef and Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse

Read the original in Kurmanci

Listen to the original read by Zêdan Xelef:

Rênas Jiyan (b. 1974) is a Kurdish poet, writer, and publisher from Turkey. Born in Qoser (Kızıltepe, Mardin Province), Jiyan received his B.A. in education from Dicle University. Doz Publications released Janya, his widely-read debut collection of poems, in 1999. In 2002, Turkish authorities in Mardin arrested him alongside twelve others on charges of studying the Kurdish language; all were imprisoned and tortured. Jiyan devoted his second book, Blood Bank (2003, Belke Publications), to shining light on the social psychology of Kurds and his third book, a tragedy titled In the Toilet (2006, Belke Publications), to studying human violence, evil, and wrath. On September 30, 2016, he was again arrested and imprisoned by the Turkish authorities only to be released a week later on October 6. Jiyan continues to live in Turkey and write in Kurdish.

Zêdan Xelef was born in the village of Izêr, on Shingal Mountain in northern Iraq, in 1995. Displaced from his home by the Islamic State’s attempt to exterminate the Êzîdî, he arrived with his family at the Chamishko IDP camp in late 2014. He studied translation at the University of Duhok and is currently translating Whitman’s Song of Myself into Kurmanji as well as a selection of poets from Rojava into English. He recently moved to Sulaimani to work for Kashkul, the center for art and culture at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS). His work has been featured by World Literature Today, the Poetry Foundation, and the Poetry Translation Centre.

Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse is a translator, poet, and professor who has lived and worked in Iraq since 2011. Levinson-LaBrosse completed a Ph.D. in Kurdish Studies on nineteenth-century poetry from the University of Exeter. Handful of Salt (The Word Works, 2016) and Dictionary of Midnight (Phoneme Media, 2019) introduced the poetry of Kajal Ahmad and Abdulla Pashew, respectively, to English. Her writing has appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation, Words Without Borders, The Sewanee Review, The Iowa Review, and World Literature Today. She currently serves as the director of Kashkul, the center for arts and culture, at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani.