Gasham Najafzadeh’s truth

Gasham Najafzadeh’s truth

By Shemsi Vefadar
From Sharg newspaper

I saw alive time standing in front of me in Gasham Najafzadeh’s poems. Inside, life of a minute, inner meaning is very long, wide in this section of time.

Poetry is the product of a moment. Both love and poem come into life in a moment. “When we love, we love in a moment”. I saw moments of life distributed about, taut nerves of man in Gasham Najafzadeh’s poems. A passed love has remained very alive, fresh place of date is still popping out. It is still raining. Your tear drops are still larger than pupil of your eye.

I don’t know what night is and what day is.
Daughters and brides are in poor condition.
I lost Shusha, I have a son, and I kept mum.
Motherland, may your son perish like mine

Or:

Fact of changing of ordinary way of life into poetic detail happens in the element of language, to be exact, in the formula of its expression. Contradiction of two lines in” I lost Shusha, I have a son, I kept mum. Motherland, may your son perish like mine!” contrast created in the context appears as life element. The poet simply, reveals polysemy, paradox of word in day, in light.
Word is cardiogram and original autobiography of the poet. Turns, joys and grieves of word life is clearly seen including microscopic features.
I don’t remember what genius said that “To think is history” at the same time, word is a physical geography. It is a movement, a scene coming before eyes.

Don’t wave your hands in vain
If you wave then wave for me
For example like this!

Poet brings life details before our eyes naturally. “If you wave then wave for me
For example like this!” scene is convincing. I have seen waving of hands like this many times and the way parting fractures hit these ands is before my eyes. I would say that it is poet who gives synthesis of thinking and its thinking pathology and introduces in the most original form in Gasham Najafzadeh’s poems. Gasham Najafzadeh’s poems are full of life. But the life is also very complex. Poet’s colours dipping his pen into life ink are simple and understandable. For example:

Hold on,
In my view,
Girls are comprised of their fingers.

Or:
My sofa cries
For I haven’t woken up today
All cry differently
But my son Tural cries this way:
Daddy, go to work

Life dialectics and philosophy is felt naturally. Philosophy is in word (in broad meaning) and word is in philosophy. Here to forget means “I love” or vice versa.

I only won’t forget
How I love your legs
But when knowing those legs belongs to you
I don’t promise even this.

I know for sure that here “I don’t promise” in fact means I love. This is the way new view explained by poem, intonation. May be other reader understands it in another way. But for reading and preparation stage in noun I understand it this way, may be I will find another version in the poem tomorrow. People take artistic information from this poem according to their scope of understanding. Every poem is perceived differently with the stimulus, neurotic, exciting features its gives.

Here is my will to you
Always look for confidence
In short poems.
Anyway our life is so short.
There will not be need for large poems.

There is no contradiction in these lines. They are clear, simple and readable. This is one of poet’s sate. Poet may contradict this idea in another poem and ground it. It seems to me that, any literary text, poem or a detail is the prove any life truth. To be exact, these activities are the final stage of life analyses.

Love also overstepped all boundaries
Now stands in the middle
And repented.

Readers learning mathematical elements of life won’t accept this poem at first sight.
It will take some time to understand this poetic and abstract truth established by synthesis of pen and thinking focused on objects and events. For example: I have always loved contradiction, confusion, attached great trust in doubt because life truth in objects perceived by me in this way is great.

Great Turk poet Tofig Fikret said: I am not in a foreign country, foreign country is inside me. Psychological state going on in Turkish poetry for centuries still goes on. It is in a totally new aspect in Gasham Najafzadeh’s poems. May it is sons of motherland living in a foreign country like Gasham Najafzadeh who love motherland by heart, sacrificing themselves for the liberty of motherland. New way of expression of notion of motherland may seem disputable for others. I can surely say that though foreign country is used as a synonym of motherland there lives symptoms of motherhood, statehood rather than that of foreign country. May be poets will love word foreign country and will give their self to this word so much that this word will mean motherland. They say foreign country is motherland, motherland is foreign country. I can’t see difference between foreign country and motherland in Gasham Najafzadeh’s poems.

Policemen was kicking two children
Begging for money from people
The sound motherland was crying
In the tongue of children

Clear, fluent way of expression, alteration of front vowels is the main success of the poet.
I think it I the beginning of the literary truth to be said later. Poetry truth comes later. At the end of the same poem:

The city couldn’t understand
The language of child’s feet

Because the road was crying under bare feet.-says the poet Gasham Najafzadeh. The main idea comes at the end of the poem. It is the said very right:

They were hiding their hands from children
As if children will deprive them of their hands

Poetic truth in these lines attracted my attention like violet under bushes. There is nothing calling out for attention, no pathos in Gasham Najafzadeh’s poems. Everything, all truth is undercover. Readers must unveil that cover within their scope of knowledge and upbringing. The poem, literature is beautiful which truth is not on the surface. The joy which is on the surface is temporary. But the truth is in depth, in the grief. Gasham Najafzadeh’s poetry has perfect, scientific, philosophical, wise grief.


Flower your petals are dusty
Let me kiss it to wash
Honey, your looks are sad
Look at me to purify

Truth hidden in sad looks is beautiful. Not everybody’s look is sad. Not every sad look will purify by looking at it. If looks are sad it means that this person is great, under God’s attention.
Gasham Najafzadeh is like a mist coming from the Mughan land in our poetry. I think mist is the most mysterious thing in the world. Mist is always in fact this mist is also ours that is it has come from Savalan Mountains to Lachyn Mountains and from there it will go to Shahdagh, Goshgar and Kapaz Mountains. The coolness brought by this mist and feeling strangeness absorbed people are conception of poetry. The things in the world which are strange to poem are close to poetry for example: dawn, evening, sound of azan (call to prayer), sound of Quran, and Habil’s kamancha how strange they are. Yes, in my understanding there is a strangeness of Gasham Najafzadeh in our literature. It doesn’t mean that he is far from attention and love. Certainly not! Much was said about Alesger’s saz, Vurghun’s aura, M.Mushfig’s irascibility, R.Rza’s wisdom, A.Karim’s smile, I want to add one more to the above-mentioned: Gasham Najafzadeh’s strangeness, there is strangeness in his speech, smile and walk. His poems are absorbed with strangeness. Gasham Najafzadeh’s poems are very sweet, soft, mild, bright and sincere. His language mentality is based on nation.

For example:

My son having hunter eyes
He has many friends
I have two, three sons
They say there is a post
At the corner of every street.
My son whose son looks like sickle
My son who lives by the telephone
I think, Gasham Najafzadeh’s poem book “Etcetera” can be considered as one of the most successful books of recent years. You simply must read it.