Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 4, Number 2. November 2021. ISSN: 2581-7094
Writer Angels
(ghazal)
---
Azam Abidov
Day is breaking in despair thinking of you, writer angels,
I am praying, slowly crying, crowned with rue, writer angels.
Every movement, every motion we consider right for us,
Though in practice what you’ve written will become true, writer
angels.
I’m a sinner holding heavy loads on my filthy arms,
It wishes to be so open-hearted, pure like dew, writer angels.
The book of our deeds in whole weep or dance in old pages,
I forgot my past betrayal; give to look through, writer angels.
Haven’t you tired yet to seat on creature’s shoulders all long
life?
Let us change the place for one day, it’s Azam’s queue, writer
angels.
Read Me A Poem
---
Azam Abidov
We are living in the time when a poet reads a poet, a poet
translates a poet, and a poet presents a book to a poet. Most of the poetry
books I have were given to me by my poet friends, living and creating
throughout the world, in search of and hope for a better life for generations
to come. I treasure them all. And I try to read them all. Still a
pile of books of fiction by the writers I met are waiting for me in my shelf.
It’s a little different with poetry collections. You cannot simply put them
alone unread. You want to read them aloud.
In Uzbekistan, people do read poetry. People read and send poems
to each other. My Telegram messenger, Facebook and OK.ru are full of poems sent
by my friends and not friends, poets and not poets. Uzbeks share poems by
famous and infamous authors not only on holidays, but also almost every day.
Topics vary: from respecting parents to taking care of the world and finding
yourself. Poems on religious topics on Fridays fly all over Telegram.
People read poems on birthday parties, weddings and other solemn occasions,
because it is easy, beautiful and well-accepted by the audience.
It was a long time ago. But I remember that day clearly when I saw
a woman reading a book under the candlelight late in the evening. It was an old
woman, who used to live in the trash center. She was deep in reading that she
even did not pay attention to people coming and going, leaving their trash into
the big dustbin. She was reading a poetry book. Impressed by the scene I later
wrote a short poem:
“A woman’s sitting in a slum
The slum is in a dump.
As she gets the hump:
The woman is reading.
It is dark in the dump,
There is a dim light
Inside the slum.
The woman is reading
Under the wan candlelight.
Her hope from life is dim, dim…
The reading woman
of my dream!”
***
Last week, I was sent old, yellow pieces of paper from a
neighboring region. That was the poems by a grand grandfather of a relative of
mine. Poems were hardly seen on the old paper. I loved the smell of the paper,
I felt the old man’s grieves and stories shed on the paper in the form of
poetry. One of the poems was about the old man’s child he lost. He was not a
poet or at least did not call him so. But it was poetry he addressed to comfort
himself almost a hundred years ago. I could read and write down some of them. I
need to send these papers back to my relative now. I suggested that they put
them into frames, hang them on the wall, read them and keep them for
generations.
Whenever Uzbek people see kids, especially those who go to
kindergartens, they ask, “What poem do you know? Can you recite one?” I also
ask my kids to read a poem from a poetry collection. I used to buy tens of
poetry collections of my poet friends to give them to my friends, neighbors and
colleagues as a gift. I like when kids read poems expressively, in Uzbek or
Russian. They get candies in return.
And I remember one thing for life. Twenty years ago, on the first
wedding night of mine, my wife asked me, “Read me a poem.” I read her several
poems by heart. She loved them. Twenty years have passed since then. She
got three kids in return. And I still have a treasure for life: “Read me a
poem.”