Forty Names

By Parwana Fayyaz

In this remarkable first collection, Parwana Fayyaz evokes events in the lives of Afghan women, past and present their endurance and achievements, told from their points of view. John McAuliffe writes of the 'remarkable litanies, which haunt her poems' occasions' and the title poem, with which she won the 2019 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem, is such a litany, conjuring and commemorating.The poems are not judgmental: they witness. The reader infers the contexts. As well as the human stories there is a spectacular landscape, unfamiliar villages and cities, and a rich history which the Western press in reporting contemporary news foreshortens and diminishes. 'Storytelling has a long tradition in Afghan culture. Stories are passed down orally. Every woman even or especially those who are illiterate knows and has memorized a few important stories to share [...] I grew up among women who never went to school my grandmothers, my mother, my aunts.' As the poet grew away from that tradition, in which patience was the chief virtue, she lost patience and began her resistance, their resistance, in her poems which hover between cultures and languages, thinking in one and understanding in another. Each language has its history and value systems: 'it was learning English that gave me my voice as a poet, enabling me to distance myself as well as to comprehend the connection with the tradition I was brought up in.'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Sep 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781800171213

Parwana Fayyaz

Parwana Fayyaz was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1990. From the age of seven to sixteen, she was raised in Quetta, Pakistan. Once her family was able to return to Kabul, she finished high school and enrolled in her first English program in Chittagong, Bangladesh, where she also began her undergraduate studies. In 2012, she transferred to Stanford, where she earned a BA, with a major in Comparative Literature and a minor in Creative Writing, and an MA in Religious Studies. In 2016, she moved to Trinity College, Cambridge, to pursue a PhD in Persian Studies. She defended her thesis in 2020 and became a Research Fellow at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where she continues to do both her academic and creative work.

Book preview

FORTY NAMES

Parwana Fayyaz

CARCANET POETRY

CONTENTS

Title Page

Roqeeya

Sewing Needles

Three Dolls

Bright Dreams

The Old Kitchen

The Scorpion

Roqeeya

Patience Flower to Morning Dew

Patience Flower to Morning Dew

A Letter to Flower and Crown

Aunt Quietude’s Journey

The Perfect Woman

Grandmother Lion’s Ruby Ring

Grandmother Lion’s Old Love Story

Two Gravestones

The Emerald Ring

The Silent Poet

Queen of Sheba

Golden-haired Zari

Forty Names

Forty Names

Wolf-Rider

Durrani

In Search of a Woman

Her Name is Flower Sap

The Flower in the Pear

The Caller and Her Constellation

Reading Nadia with Eavan

The Woman on the Rock

In Search of a Woman

About the Author

Copyright

ROQEEYA

SEWING NEEDLES

When the war started, my father took my mother on a journey,

a journey unwanted by either of them –

away from home and far from their city.

Into exile, next to our little feet and hands,

my mother carried her box of sewing needles,

and her Butterfly sewing machine made in the USSR.

Moving between rented rooms, fabric became a land familiar to her.

Opening her box and resting her sewing machine on the floor,

she made dresses of different colors and textures.

Kabul gave her velvet, in all colors –

she chose the colors of liver and ocean,

burgundy and royal blue.

Pakistan gave her satin, in yellow and orange,

she preferred something

onion-colored.

India gave her cotton, in thick and thin,

she selected something

in between.

One year, she learned to spin coarse wool.

And with the money she earned,

she bought silk.

She waited. I waited.

Until the hard skin on the tips of her fingers softened,

before she touched the silk.

She then made dresses for her three daughters,

Parwana, Shabnam, and Gohar, in colors

pistachio, red-rose, and sea-green.

Every stitch of her needle gave life

to elegant styles of youth and an Afghan

mother’s pride, even in exile.

THREE DOLLS

During the wars,

my mother made our clothes

and our toys.

For her three daughters,

she made dresses, and once

she made us each a doll.

Their figures were made with sticks

gathered from our neighbor’s garden.

She rolled white cotton fabric

around the stick frames

to create a skin for each doll.

Then she fattened the skin

with cotton extracted from an old pillow.

With black and red yarns bought from

uncle Farid’s store, my mother created faces.

A unique face for each doll.

Large black eyes, thick eyelashes and eyebrows.

Long black hair, a smudge of black for each nose.

And lips in red.

Our dolls came alive,

with each stitch of my mother’s sewing needle.

We dyed their cheeks with red rose-petals,

and fashioned skirts from bits of fabric,

from my mother’s sewing basket.

And finally, we named our dolls.

Mine with a skirt of royal green was the oldest and tallest,

and I called her Duur. Pearl.

Shabnam chose a skirt of bright yellow

and called her doll, Pari. Angel.

And our youngest sister, Gohar, chose deep blue fabric,

and named her doll, Raang. Color.

They lived longer than our childhoods.

BRIGHT DREAMS

When I was ten, my mother made me a dress.

The blouse was in yellow –

the skirt membered in colors and distinct textures.

The