Shahrzad: An Accidental Surrealist?

Indeed upon a perusal of her poetry and prose there is no doubt that her work contains exceptional imagination.  The imagery that she employs is unique to Persian literary.  (Talattof 5) More accurately, the manner in which she presents some of her images is unparalleled.  However, a closer look, and an examination of the frequent appearances of certain images creates a pattern found similarly in other surrealist literature.  As Quinn suggests, “the Comparison of images from ‘surreal’ writers from different countries further facilitates the identification of surreal elements in imagery, and helps to isolate these from other modernist characteristics.”   (Quinn 7-8)  In accordance to this assumption, in the analysis of several of Shahrzad’s poems, imagery found in her work will be compared to some other Surrealist poets.

3. Through Imagery She Speaks

Particular importance was placed on the significance of the “visual” in Surrealism’s poetic imagery.  (Quinn 193) The often incongruous ordering of various images was considered to be derived from natural thought patterns, the fusion of dream and reality.  (Gorin, http://newmedia.cgu.edu/cody/surrealism/)  Quinn’s study on hemispheric specialization of the brain and its relation to the development of Surrealism postulates that humans have focused more on the left hemisphere (left side) of the brain, thus the prevailing of analytical and logical thought.  She asserts that the fundamental difference distinguishing imagery in, for example, Romantic literature and Surrealists is the process of creating imagery.  The Romantic uses his left hemisphere as he carefully chooses his metaphors with intent.  Thus the conceptual (verbal) precedes the perceptual (visual).  Conversely, Surrealists avoid forethought and intention of word usage, and write without restraint.  A parallel model (table 1.1) organized by Betty Edwards explains the differences in the process of “knowing” based on the hemispheric brain activity. (Quinn 9) This would then support the argument that surrealist imagery is not mere paralogism but rather a surreal pattern of thinking.  It would follow that frequency of particular word usage and imagery do not insinuate forethought or conscious metaphor, but rather uninhibited and automatic expression of one’s unconscious.

Table 1.1

        When reading Shahrzad, indeed, one comes across unusual imagery of various sorts, but more importantly in our study of her expression, the frequency of particular images and thematic imagery provide clues in our labeling her a Surrealist writer.  As seen in other surrealist art and literature, animal imagery plays an unconventional role in providing metaphor.  The famed artist, Salvador Dali used animals liberally throughout his work, often appearing with distorted limbs, warped features, and un-proportional sizes.  (Gonzalez, http://www.slantmagazine.com)  Shahrzad unabashedly uses the image of the horse throughout the length of both her collected poems.  The usage of this image is uncommon in Persian literature, particularly in the way she employs this symbol.  To recount all appearances of the horse image would be exhaustive, however several excerpts from her various poems provided here:

        I can pass by you

        Through your arms

        Through your eyes

        Like that mounted Horseman        

        Who on his horse all ablaze, burned and passed through the fire. (Shahrzad1 14)

The image of “his horse all ablaze, burned and passed through the fire,” remarkably resembles Salvador Dali’s painting, “Untitled - the Seven Arts, 1944” found in figure 1.1.  Moreover, Dali’s use of horses plays a dominate role in the animal imagery of his paintings.  In the latter, the distorted horse with a fiery mane, coming from the mouth of a man, hovers over six figures, seemingly ablaze with fire.  

Figure 1.1

In another poem she writes:

I saddled my horse

I was ill

The beginning of the sea is your house.

Good air

Good land

The sound of my horse’s hoofs.

I abandoned goodness, I had two sweet dates

Which I offered to my horse

And I traveled with these dates. (Shahrzad2 20)

One could speculate that the horse is a metaphor related to sexuality.   At times it is the antagonist, at other the protagonist.  In terms of surrealism the horse is not just a metaphor in expressing an idea, but rather the image of the horse is the reality of her thoughts when thinking of sexuality.  When she says, “I abandoned goodness, I had two sweet dates / which I offered to my horse”, perhaps the dates are seeds, her reproductive organs, her virginity, being proffered in a sexual encounter.  No doubt she floods her pages with this struggle of her horse, and the horse of others.  At times she introduces horseless individuals to the reader:

I remember your cheeks carrying

Prisoners without horses.

At night

Insensible heroes

Sang military songs

Whipped the travelers

Captured the horses

Cut their manes

And they startled to the prairies. (Shahrzad2 21)

Could the mane of the horses be symbolic for nobility or innocence?  Could the capturing of the horses represent the steeling of virginity or self-decency?  One is left to assume metaphor and meaning.  However, the frequency and appearance of such imagery is irresistible to the reader’s interpreting speculations.  Surrealist expression is not merely a style or trend of writing; it is a mode of thinking.  Thus, it becomes difficult to interpret her poetry, or any Surrealist, by conventional analysis.  At other times the imagery of the horse becomes to vague to categorize as a sexual metaphor, seen in her poem Womanly 9:

        In my wakefulness you are

        So in love

        That you don’t hear

        The thirsty horses thundering across

        The burning land.

        My horse shrieks afar

        The beads of the rosary hanging from its neck

        Are made from the soil of the poor people in love. (Shahrzad2 40)

        Other prevalent imagery that reoccurs frequently in her poem is the use of color.  Other than conventional description, she often projects color on non-tangible object; furthermore, she attributes unusual colors to objects that are certainly of another color.  Indeed, surrealist literature of various sorts contains incorrect assignment of colors on differing objects.  In keeping with Quinn’s study, along side the study of some other scholars that she mentions, about the differentiating characteristic of surrealist thought process versus that of other abstract or modern literature, this attribution of color to the non-tangible or the placement of wrong colors on specific objects is not a contrived innovation of style, but rather part of the “deep thought” being manifested in linguistic terms.  (Quinn 9)  This shared characteristic again moves Shahrzad out of the light of nonsensical writing, and aligns her closer with the ideology of the surrealist.  As seen in Benjamin Perét poem, entitled The Staircase with a Hundred Steps, objects are decorated with color:

The blue eagle and the demon of the steppes
in the last cab in Berlin
Legitimate defense
of lost souls
the red mill at the beggars' school
awaits the poor student (Matthews 47)

In the poem, Making Feet and Hands, he goes on to say:

        There are also hands

long white hands with nails of fresh greenery

and finger-joints of dew

swaying eyelashes looking at butterflies (Matthews 49)

        Shahrzad’s unique imagery is often intertwined with color.  In her The Mountain Spring Conquers the Sea, with similar imagery to Perét, she writes:

In the dawn of his house,

I saw flying fish

With two blue wings

Under a red honey bower.

The white winds pass over his house from all directions

And the night

Passes through the darkness of my closed eyelashes (Saedi1 23)

With abstract imagery like the ones found in the latter and former, one cannot attribute the unique images to common place metaphor; for example, “pale as the moon” or “razor sharp teeth”.  Why then do two unlikely images (blue wings / blue eagle, closed eyelashes / swaying eyelashes) surface in the work of two different authors, who had no relation to one another? One explanation is plagiarism, or at least imitation.  However, according to Quinn, Inez Hedges “developed a computer program which could simulate surrealist automatic writing through a process of semantic mismatching.” By entering a word, the computer would follow with the most likely words to follow based on surrealist thinking. (Quinn 135)  The fact that a program could be created to reproduce a pattern of thought implies that Surrealism writing is neither completely random nor meaningless.  Following this assumption, Shahrzad’s often seemingly incoherent poetry and prose becomes validated as legitimate expression.  The similarities found between her imagery and the imagery of surrealists from different parts of the world also supports this notion, and further credits her with literary merit.  

One is tempted to pose the question, “Did she know she was a surrealist, or was it accidental?”   Names of various authors appear sparingly in her poetry, alluding to her knowledge of surrealism.  Among them, Rimbaud and Eluard are mentioned in but one verse. (Shahrzad1 2)  This implicates that she was in touch with surrealist literature, or at least heard of it.  However, is this enough to claim Shahrzad a Surrealist poetess?   Indeed, she follows the general patterns of Surrealist works, in that symbols reoccur in not traditional context; some of her images are also found in other surrealist literature and art; and ultimately the appearance and look of her work fit the general feel of surrealist literary work.  Finally, the fact that she wrote in such an abstract manner among other emerging modern Iran writers, breaking from the convention, puts her in a category of her own.  

Although her literary merit has been established based on her mode of expression as defined according to Surrealism, why did she write?  Although their might have been no forethought or intention to produce abstract images, they require a source from which to emerge.  As mentioned earlier, the purpose of surrealism (literature or art) is to explore language by expressing that which surpasses reality, namely the subconscious.  Freud and Jung explored this concept psychologically.  From a gloss observation Breton seems to have wanted to do for poetry and literature, what the latter two did for the field of psychology.  To explore ones emotions and to bring them to surface for analyzing and dealing were key components in Surrealism.  It may follow then that Shahrzad wrote to deal with her struggles.  From reading her three volumes, this writer suggests that her poetry may be categorized into five general themes: (1) childhood, (2) sexuality, (3) redemption as a return to innocence, (4) identity, (5) being understood.  Although Talattof notes that neither of her two books of poetry contains a specific theme.  (Talattof 3-5) these themes have implicitly been suggested (in addition to more specific branches) in his article, “Thirsty, She Aged: The Poetry, Acting, and Dancing of Shahrzad.”

4. Themes in a Non-Thematic Collection of Poetry

However, in agreement with the surrealist definition of “deep thought”, true surrealist expression would most certainly lack an organized theme, and would rather emerge as a manifestation of the subconscious.  Paradoxical though it may seem, this paper purports that her poetry was an attempt to reconcile her emotional and psychological struggles.  Whether Shahrzad was conscious of her mode of expression (surrealism), or not, matters little.  For essential surrealism is the expression of feelings (the subconscious) unrestrained by logical reasoning.  Through Automatism her imagery becomes sufficient expression of her reality.  Through Veristic Surrealism her words are put down as a means whereby her unconscious thoughts emerge, eventually allowing her conscious to reconcile traumatic experiences as a child, her sexuality and identity, and her neglected and misunderstood personage.  

4.1 On Childhood:

The theme of childhood appears throughout the breath of her writings. Moreover her third publication, a book of short stories and prose revolves around the story of a child name Tuba.  By bringing to front the topic of childhood she seems to be confronting her own childhood loss to the waywardness of life, while simultaneously attempting to recapture it.

I passed you up

Like the sun

That passed up my childhood

I can pass by you like a star

That passes through my forehead

In the daylight without being seen

And makes me young again (Shahrzad1 14)

        Her tainted childhood, stains her verses with the bitterness of the past, and the sweetness of what may have had been were it to be resaved.  In the following poem she describes the fragile nature of her childhood, and how it broke into pieces leaving her exposed to the world as a “child with a blackened body / white hair / and a dress made of your [antagonists] eyes.  These three startling and vivid images may be seen as the loss of her purity, the aging effects of life’s tragedy, and the agent that took it away from her.

Remember

my childhood with glass eyes

I pass

I broke

And

From my broken pieces, there remained only my eyes on the thorn

Looking at you

Not looking at you

I said, I have an address

You said, I know

I said, I.

A child with a blackened body

White hair

And a dress made of your eyes

Counting her body with a loud song (Shahrzad1 38)

At other times she projects her childhood onto a third party, but changes grammatical persons to re-associate the actor (the boy) with the narrator (herself).  She pities the misfortunes of innocent children, while drawing pity likewise on herself.  The imagery of thirst appears in this next poem in light of the child’s essential needs.  She fails him, although desperate to help as she says, “… however, I stole from his neck, his gold and his prayer.”  Although a speculation, I would suggest that here, his gold represents nobility and his prayer his spirituality.  Conceivably she is tries to save the boy, which may also symbolize her childhood, but finds herself helpless.  Interpreting surrealist literature is far more complex than that of any other genre, in that the possibility of a metaphorical meaning is moot.

I did not know why the gypsy would tell my mother’s fortune

In the mirror.

In the mirror, there was only the child’s image.

In the mirror,

The child was thirst.

When I gave him water, however,

I stole from his neck, his gold and his prayer.

Yesterday, I was not a child.

The gypsy had silk

I found a green silk shirt with prayers

And I took the silk to the prostitute’s children.  (Shahrzad2 14)

4.2 On Sexuality

        No doubt, her affiliation with the low-grade Iranian film genre known as Film Farsi, which included nudity, sex, and rape scenes, stained her image, identity, and life.  (Talattof  11)  Moreover, her encounters with sexual abuse as a child must have had a tragic impact on her life.  Other than a search for identity, this theme dominates her poetic discourse through the use of imagery including animals, fruits, and events.  In engaging the topic, she struggles with her past and most likely her present life.  Subsequently, she often looks for identity or meaning in her relations with men:

From my desert beliefs

I fall into your placeless religion

Not for embracing love

Not for the sake of time

Not for the sake of place

Not for the desert

I fall in you

As my place is in your small hand

Outside the garden

Your must ride the horse

You must ride me

So that I can turn the wheels

And turn

Turn

Turn around the air

And place

Your love on heart and plant

So that from your small hands

My name could grow

A hand from the legless earth. (Shahrzad1 34)

At times her innuendos of sex are clouded in obscurity.  She perhaps tried to capture understanding of an overwhelming experience—attempting to understand and be understood.  Nonetheless, other poems portray a vivid picture through abstract imagery:

        Sir,

        You came to visit me

        You covered me

        With jasmine perfume

        You gave me to drink

        Milk,

        Milk,

        The milk that the lion had milked from the moon’s breast. (Shahrzad1 40)

        Her struggle with childhood sexual encounters follows the theory that her writing was a means or rather a mode to understand those traumatic experiences.  In her poem, Darkness, Who Are You, she depicts the passing from purity and innocence to the sullied reality of a bitter world:

        

Darkness,

At the end of the road

A horse is running in the whiteness of thewin.

In the distance

Under the tall trees

A girl is sleeping

Dreaming of forty dervishes.

At the end of the road

A white horse startles.

My children, welcome to your pilgrimage of the earth’s darkness

To the reception of the apple’s redness

To the party of the fish’s silence. (Shahrzad1 74)

In another poem she describes her experiences with, perhaps, rape or the loss of virginity.  Here in the dark alley, out of the sight of public eyes, she may be describing her sexual organs bleeding from a rough encounter:

In the alleys,

You have hung my hand.

The black wall of time

Is growing

From the lagoon of two red ships

On the surface of swollen breaths. (Shahrzad2 4)

4.3 On Redemption as a Return to Innocence

        Occasionally, the reader finds pieces alluding to a desire for redemption, or more accurately a return to Innocence.  The redemption may have been sought because of her sexually active lifestyle.  Her desire to return to innocence is found predominately through the imagery of children. This indeed is another emotional struggle and reckoning for the purpose of reconciliation.  This search extends to an indefinite tomorrow:

I wore the perfume

The childen rushed with

Their mothers dressed in rain

To send me off to the promised tomorrow.  (Shahrzad2 10)

She seeks redemption through confession at times, but also through a means whereby she may save whatever credibility and nobility remains within her.  She appeals in another poem:

        You’ve gone as far as man’s respect can reach

        And I reach out to you to expose me        

        To expose me respectfully (Shahrzad2 27)

Again, in another passage she writes:

        What a mistake I made.

My grandmother said

Repent and do not repeat the mistakes.

And I promised. (Shahrzad2 61)

4.4 On Identity

        

        No theme dominates her poetry more than that of identity.  For in searching and discussing all other themes, she searches for self-realization and genuine identity.  She sets out her struggling search through various means.  At one time she claims to be the sum of various attributes via objects, while at others she is nothing at all.  The surrealist experience is one of self-exploration just as it is the exploration of linguistic expression.  After all, the movement is based on the concept of an “inner reality” that is not manifested in the contingent world.   She became known for her profession, thus her identity was commingled with the role of an erotic dancer and a scandalous woman.  Indeed, as will follow in the final theme, she was misunderstood.  In searching for identity, she sought to understand herself.  In her poem I stay, I go Shahrzad provides a perspective on her struggle with claiming an identity of her own:        

In this journey,

I cannot afford a name

I cannot afford an eye

Perhaps I have eyes

Alas my eyes

And alas he who comes to me

And you who open the door

So that I can go into the wall

So that I can be seen again. (Shahrzad1 21)

Perhaps her inability to “afford a name,” suggests that she had lost the ability to define her identity.  When she says “I cannot afford an eye,” it may be referring to her inability to formulate an independent perspective, while she has recognized the possibilities of its potential.  Uncertain, she seems to be looking for identity through the agency of another, particularly a man, so that she could “be seen again”.  

        Conversely, in some of her other poems she makes straight forward claims to an identity, either manifesting her inner thoughts, or desperate for certitude:

I am an animal

I am not drunk

I am not clothed (Shahrzad1 37)

In another passage she writes:

I become filled with you

I melt in you

I become a river

I rain upon the warm snow.

A thousand stars

Sprout in the rain.

The earth becomes pregnant with wheat.

Seventy virgins die

And my breast reddens the unripe apples.

I become condemned

I become a grape

I become unripe, acrid

Seventy esteemed angels condemn me when I

Become you

Become you. (Shahrzad2 38)

Is she talking to her self in this dialogue? Is she searching for an authentic self while cursing what she has now become—something she sees as the other?  Seldom does any real identity emerge in her writing.  She appears lost in the identity of others, while seeking self-understanding, and the understanding of others.  Indeed, her identity is often lost under the shadows of others:

My name is your name

Because I am standing

Under the waterfall of your name

And I am thinking about your journey

That has cut my wrists

I am a martyr and my life continues. (Shahrzad2 31)

4.5 On Understanding

The following theme—her appeal to be understood—is essentially an extension of the latter theme.  This creates a tension in her writing, where the search for identity is constantly assaulted by misconception and misunderstanding of her personage by others.  An element of non-existence comes into play, as she writes in one of her most striking poems:

At the end of the suspicious year,

I strived to know the names.

The vice principle’s hand

Struck the air with a hammer

It turned the innocent morning breaths

On a piece of red iron, hanging from the school’s pine tree.

Bang …bang …bang.

The silence tortured the innocence

The first prayer, clearly,

Was a curse.

All rise.

All be seated.

I

Did not say present

Then

I was absent. (Shahrzad1 3)

As Talattof suggests, “a continuation of misunderstanding, misrepresentation, and mistreatment” rained upon her from spectators. (Talattof 14)  The closing verse of this poem entail the essence of her search for understanding and identity.  By not speaking, by not defining her identity, she becomes absent or rather unheard and overlooked.  At other times, she claims to be representing herself, her identity, but it is passed over and misunderstood:

You see my lips reciting a poem

In the middle of the songs

Yet you don’t hear it. (Talattof 29)

5. Conclusion                

In the outset of this paper it was asserted that Shahrzad could be proven to be a meritorious writer through association and relation to Surrealist literature. Furthermore, it contended that she wrote for the purpose of reconciliation and redemption of her emotional and psychological struggles.  Through a gloss review of surrealist theory—its implications as a natural mode of linguistic expression and an explanation of its origins—Shahrzad was identified not only as a surrealist, but also one who could claim merit for her work.  By dividing her work thematically into five general categories, a natural argument developed in support of her intention to reconcile emotionally, and to redeem herself through the search of a reborn identity.  Indeed, much work is left undone in critically analyzing her poetry and prose; however the scope of this paper entailed the aforementioned aims.  Whether or not further literary critics will look at her work is uncertain.  However, in the view of this writer her poetry stands as a significant emblem of Iranian surrealism, unexplored and relatively unknown.

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