Ali Noori

on translating Hossein Monzavi

Whether motivated by certain scholarly sensibilities or a personal attachment to the centuries-old history of ghazal, I decided to leave the word untranslated. The ghazal, often translated as lyric poetry, is a poetic tradition that spans across languages and geographical boundaries. The Persian ghazal is defined by two sets of characteristics. First, the form, the “aa-ba-ca” rhyme scheme, is the most recognizable formal feature of the ghazal; there are also rules governing meter. Second, regarding the content, the ghazal tradition comes with a cluster of images, devices, and conventions. Ghazals do not have titles.

As such, the translator’s challenge is also two-fold; formal qualities of the Persian ghazal are impossible to fully import into English. I have attempted to approximate the sound of the ghazal by keeping the rhyme scheme, albeit imperfectly. The conventional images are even more difficult to “translate.” The morning breeze, the rose garden, the ghazal itself as it is referenced in the last line, the night of separation and the morning of union that form the conceptual universe of the poem here are all common tropes within the tradition of the ghazal. A translation of a ghazal into another language — and by extension a new poetic and cultural space — divorces these images from the rich tapestry of meaning that they are a part of and that gives each of them more significance than a poem standing by itself can carry. I chose this ghazal to translate in part because I thought that even after the violent severance that is inevitable in the act of translation, the images retained some of their vibrancy and vitality.