Railings Around the Crib

Notes

Iranian poet Farzaneh Ghavami, born in 1968, writes poetry that explores women's experiences living under a repressive government suppressing women's rights, their femininity, unique voices and ways of life. Her lyrical conversations often serve as a platform for social and political commentary on the current socio-political situation in Iran.

We had two full sessions to translate "Railings Around the Crib." The poem is full of luminous metaphors and powerful imagery. In our translation process, we simplified some of the lines, looking for alternatives that felt closer to the original poem. For example, we changed "The first time is a pure sense that is repeated the last time" to "The purity of the first instance is repeated in the last”, clarifying the poet’s intention.

We also transformed "Were the Phoenicians the ones who invented fire?" to "Did Phoenicians create fire?" to capture some of the everyday language used in Ghavami's original poem written in Persian. We had a lengthy discussion about the line "It's the middle of the night" and ultimately settled on "It's the hour of midnight prayers" to incorporate a spiritual and religious reference that also denotes a specific time of day, something that was important for clarity and the build-up of meaning in the rest of the stanza.

The verse containing the poem's title, "In vain are being installed the railings around the crib”, was translated as "The railings around the crib are built in vain". This was done to convey a range of ideas, including motherhood, political violence, and oppression, as well as a prevalent sense of irony that is present throughout the poem.

- Leo Boix, Poet-Facilitator