Translating a poem is like building a creative bridge between two languages and cultures. Salim ur Rahman has built wonderful creative bridges between Hamid Yazdani’s Urdu poems and his English readers. When we read these translations we realize how much Hamid Yazdani is fascinated with nature, seasons and time. He introduces us to the magic and mystery of mornings and evenings, days and nights, springs and falls, summers and winters.
Since a poet’s success depends upon how much he can help his readers see the extra-ordinary in the ordinary, I consider Hamid Yazdani a highly successful poet. Through his poetry, he can inspire his readers to see life through his unique eyes.
It is easy to translate prose but very difficult to translate poetry because it deals with images and feelings, similes and metaphors, mysteries and meanings that can easily be lost in the translation but Salim ur Rahman has done justice to Hamid Yazdani’s poetry. His translations are more than translations; they are rather re-creations of Urdu poems in English capturing the essence and spirit of Hamid Yazdani’s poems with all their subtleties. Salim ur Rahman has also added his own creativity to the poems to make translations more genuine and authentic.
Let me share one poem that touched me at a deeper level. For years and decades I have encountered June 21st in my life as it is the longest day of the year. That day is close to my heart and has a special meaning for me as it is very close to my birthday. But I had never experienced it the way Hamid Yazdani presented it in his poem. After reading that poem I developed a new relationship with June 21st and for the rest of my life I will see it with new eyes, hear it with new ears, think about it with a new mind and feel it with a new heart. Hamid Yazdani helped me enjoy, appreciate and admire the magic and mystery of life. Now, I would like you to read that poem so that you can also have an existential encounter with it.
JUNE 21ST
Blood!
Lava pouring down a volcano
Breath!
On fire like the scorching winds
in the dead of summer
Dreams!
Resemble forlorn, leafless branches.
Heart!
A furnace in full blaze.
Red-hot lead—
That’s what my hearing has become.
Words!
They stand for what sunlight’s swelter,
I don’t know.
The sky!
A stunning melting stillness.
The soft stir
of tired, worn-out winds.
I speak to you, wide open eyes,
which look like blisters;
no matter what you do,
the day would never come to an end,
it seems.
……….
We all experience a night every day but when we read Hamid Yazdani’s poem about night we start experiencing it in a different way. He writes:
NIGHT IS A FOOTLOOSE GIRL
You who travel through
a plenitude of light!
Night is a footloose girl.
Wandering about aimlessly
through the unknown streets of time.
A few cloudy stars
or eyes which stare at her
with lust stick to her black jacket.
She walks unsteadily
in a state of euphoria
because she wants
to control her hysteria.
Meanwhile on the morning’s chessboard
the checkmate of the moments
concealed in the mist
now makes itself manifest.
Even the thick mist
can’t hide the gaping wounds.
She has gone the round
of all the casino seasons
in front of the roulette.
The night, aimlessly wandering,
has lost all her stars
and as she lies down
to go to sleep,
wrapped up in a moonless dark,
she holds a half-burnt dream
in her fingers; she thinks,
lightly puffing away,
that surely one day,
in the gamble called life,
a win will come hurtling her away.
Someday this ritual
of checkmates will be overturned.
Maybe because she has still got
a moon in her purse.
Look into her purse,
traveller!
Night is a footloose girl.
……….
These are just a couple of examples to highlight how Hamid Yazdani’s poems change, and how we relate to our environment and start seeing usual things in an unusual way.
I would like to congratulate Hamid Yazdani for creating such wonderful poems and thank Salim ur Rahman for translating them into English so that Hamid Yazdani’s Canadian friends can also enjoy his poems as they would not have been able to appreciate them in Urdu. I feel proud to be Hamid Yazdani’s friend and feel honoured that he asked me to write a few words about his creative gifts for English-speaking readers all over the world. I hope he keeps on writing and inspiring his readers by sharing his knowledge, experience and wisdom in his creations. He is such a gifted, talented and enlightened writer and scholar.
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