.
Javad Mojabi
Born in 1939, Qazvin
BS in Law, PHD in Economy, Tehran University
more than 100s of critical works and essays on art and culture in
journals and magazines
He started his poetry from the 60's along with short story writing and research on modern painting in Iran.
A well-known satirist, the poet is close to Nima in style but mostly inclined to Shamlou in blank verse. Mostly focusing on social themes, Mojabi is a poet of philosophy and thought, which he sweetens, with a blend of satire. He employs the meter but omits when it prevents him from expressing his thoughts.
Works
A Season For You, A Spear on the Heart of Autumn, Flying in the Fog, Over the Bam, The Journeys of the Sailor of Dreams, Like Poupak, Of Being Madly in Love, The Long Poems of Reflections and My Poems and Poupak' (Poupak is the poet's daughter)
.
| Poems |
Fasli Barayeh To
(A Season for You)
Zoubini bar Qalbeh Paiz (A Spear to the Heart of Autumn)
Parvaz Dar Meh (Flying in the Fog)
Bar Bameh Bam (Over the Bam)
Safar-hayeh Malaheh Roya (The Journeys of the Sailor of
Dreams)
Poupakaneh (Like Poupak)
Sheidai-ha (Of Being madly in Love...)
Shereh Bolandeh Ta'amol (The Long Poem of Reflections)
Sher-hayeh Man-o-Poupak (My Poems and Poupak's) |
| Collection
of Short Stories |
Mano Ayoubo
Qoroub (Me & Ayoub & Sunset)
Katibeh (Relief)
Divsaran (Div-like)
Az Del Beh Kaqaz (From Heart to Paper)
Qeseyeh Roshan (The Clear Tale) |
| Stories
for Children |
Pesarakeh Cheshm
Abi (The Blue-eyed Boy)
Sibo Va Sareh Kouchoulu (Sibo & Little Starling)
Panir Balayeh Derakht (The Cheese on the Tree)
Khane-am Daryast (The Sea is My House)
Narges Dar Ayeneh (Narcissus in the Mirror)
Kashki (I Wish...) |
| Novels |
Borj-hayeh
Khamoushi (The Silent Towers)
Shahr-Bandan (The Siege of the City)
Shabeh Malakh (The Night of the Locust)
Obour Az Baqeh Qermez (Passing through the Red Garden)
Ferdowseh Mashreqi (Eastern Paradise)
Mumyai (The Mummy)
Jim (The Letter J)
Lotfan Dar Ra Bebandid (Close the Door, Please)
Yeki va An Digari (The One & The Other)
|
| Satire
& Satirical Sketches |
Yad-dasht-hayeh
Adameh Por Modea (The Notes of Pretentious Man)
Ahay Zouzanaqeh (Mr. Trapezium)
Shabahat-hayeh NaGozir (Inevitable Similarities)
Majmoei Az Tarh-hayeh Jedi va Tanz-amiz (A Collection of
Serious & Satirical Sketches)
Yad-dasht-hayeh Bedouneh Tarikh (Notes Without Date)
Nish-khandeh Irani (Iranian Cynical Smile) |
| Essays
& Researches |
Shenakht-nameyeh
Shamlou (Biography of Shamlou)
Shenakht-nameyeh Saedi (Biography of Saedi)
Tarikheh No-Pardazaneh Honar-hayeh Tajasomi Iran (History of
Iranian Modern Visual Arts), 6 volumes
Tarikheh Tanzeh Adabi Iran (History of Literary Satirical
Works in Iran)
Sayeheh Dast (Signature, a collection of some essays,
published in journals & magazines)
Moqadameh Bar Chandin Majmoue-yeh Naqashi Modern ( A
Collection of Introductions for a Number of Books on Modern
Painting in Iran |
| Plays
& Screenplays |
Shabaheh Sobh-dam
(Sodom's Spirit)
Rouzegareh Aqleh Sorkh (Age of Red Wisdom)
Mehman-Kosh (Guest-Killer)
... |
| We
Speak The Language of Love (A Speech at Pen, New York,
October 30, 1999) |
According
to the Iranian Poet Rumi, this world echoes our works, our
voices, back to us; voices, which had arisen from the inside.
The world outside is a mirror, held before the beautiful
garden of the human mind.
Iranian literature has an intuitive structure. The journey of
the poet and writer often takes place in the internal
territories, with deliberation in the spirit. In literature,
this journey reflects itself in allegorical forms. Iranian
architecture is a journey into the inside. The external
appearance of building is made up of tall walls plastered
merely with thatch, but the passageway and corridors lead to
the enchantment of gardens, terraces, galleries, mirror-rooms
and decorative stucco. The Iranian Eden Garden blossoms in
Persian carpet, and the geography of people's imagination
reflects itself in ceramic and folk crafts. Iranian philosophy
is concealed in poetry, and the mystery of Iranian life
manifests itself in myth and legend. The Iranian being faces
the inside. He internalizes the colorful world of the outside
to re-project it in miniatures. The reflection is such that,
not the transient events, but the spiritual realm and the
national imagination are represented. The human spirit
provides the paradigm, and the world, following that spirit,
is a human interpretation. Man is a small world, the
chiaroscuro of whose being molds the surrounding universe.
This is how we have lived for many millenniums. So, for us, it
is the subject that is the paradigm, the genuine; and not the
object facing us from outside. We have sought the realization
of our subjective forms in the real world. This does not turn
us into day-dreamers. On the contrary, it makes the material
world humanly possible. The natural world becomes meaningful,
because of humankind. The key to know the world is not in the
surrounding world; it is in the human heart. This key, we have
called "Love". It is through love that humanity
reaches elation. So does existence.
When writing, we, poets and writers, are the explorers of our
solitude and individuality; and the others and the world
discover them in us and reveal themselves through our writing.
We begin with ourselves and reach the others. We start from
our own culture, and through a deep recognition of our own
identity, recognize the cultures of other people, our world
relatives. Thus, world cultures are united through the
language of art. This is a world that had been unified in the
beginning; and now, after many centuries, it is moving in the
direction of an ineluctable unity. All over the world, we
speak the same language, the language of the cultural human
being; but on the surface, we will not understand each other,
unless we cross over conventional languages, established at
geographic frontiers. The language of culture, the unique
language of all of us, as writers, is the language of
imagination. It is the language of peace and love, not the
linguistic demarcations in the geography of power the words,
of which are saturated in violence and poverty, war and
ignorance.
In Iranian literature, the word "mehr" (meaning
"Love"), has had greater usage than any other word
from the time of the Mithraism inscriptions to the present. I
have no doubt that this has been the case with your
literature, or any other cultural work. Culture, like
imagination, recognizes no boundaries. This endless sea sets
the sail of The Noah's Ark of peace-seekers and lovers such as
us; and the Ark inevitably passes through the storm of blind
conflicts and hostilities. But, the ship of freedom-lovers
neither gets marooned in mud, not does it allows the invasion
of evil forces, because its wheel steers with the sun of the
liberty of mind and the liberation of the humankind.
Art deals with the knowledge and structure of the inside. It
deals with the architecture of the human mind and truth;
science and technology, and their instruments apply themselves
to the outside. They deal with the architecture of nature and
reality. We, writers, are not negligent of the outside. But,
we fell safer inside ourselves. We are the trustees of the
essence of human memory. For us, culture is a process, from
thousands of years ago to the present. The multi-millennial
current of Iranian culture has always endeavored to gain fresh
strength and become more comprehensive through relations with
new and ancient cultural currents. Its aim has been to let the
human voice, the whole of truth, be heard freely and fairly
throughout the world.
Rulers, businessmen and politicians may lie to deceive the
people. But culture, as historical evidence shows, has neither
attempted to deceive the people, nor lied; it has neither
created the war, nor has it sided with the humiliation and
destruction of the humankind or the beautiful nature around
him. Not that writers don't know how to lie. They have no need
for it. But they have exposed, throughout history, the great
lies in human relations. Writers have always speculated on
this deceitful catastrophe with agonizing pain.
Literature oscillates us between the subject and the object;
between others and us; between one culture and world cultures.
Art and literature are the anchors of imagination among human
being. We are always getting close to each other; and we are
always getting away from each other, only to come closer again
in a common space, in search of our lost human language.
Art in Iran, generally, stands beyond the realm of "Loss
and Profit". It separates itself from the system of
common materialistic values of the society. Here, art is
looked upon as the spirit's sanctity and asceticism, or
according to Nima, the founder of modern Persian poetry, it is
a kind of martyrdom. From the standpoint of the artist, the
reward of art lies in the art itself, the pleasure and ecstasy
of creation. In a world, where everything is measured by the
yardstick of loss and profit, art is created for the sake of
peace and exultation, for the sake of humanity's pleasure and
unity. The genuine artist blocks the road of prejudice and
indignity, animosity and greed, and fight against them.
We are here with you, as the citizens of a mythical city, the
megalopolis of a contemporary humanity both in pain and in
ecstasy. He is in pain, because of his difficult conditions
and unpleasant atmosphere; but, he is also brimming with a
joyful creativity, which is the ecstasy of a god; ever
searching for clues for the human condition, ever struggling
for the happiness of human being, ever trying to make the
world tolerable. It is a miracle of art and literature that we
can still stand together here with the voices of Homer and
Dante, Hafiz and Whitman, with that very essence of humanity
that is love. We can work alongside each other, or away from
each other, but with one heart, for ourselves, as well as for
others; for a world that is faithless mother of all.
| In An Isfahan Morning,
Translated to English by M. Alexandrian |
Your name to the wind I bestow,
And your body's white music also,
In the bush,
At night,
I remembered you,
Brimful of songs of drunkenness,
I arise,
In an Isfahan morning.
Your name has survived in my book
With this dervish's broken handwriting
On the azure tablet. |
|
|
