Poetry Nights: Community in Exile

by M. Rastgoo

Wednesdays were always the same. Every week, without fail, my father would come collect me from afterschool daycare, and, instead of driving me home, would drive me the other way, to Mountain View, to the shabe sher, the poetry night. We went to the same café, every week; went up to the counter, and ordered the same drinks (sugar-free vanilla latte for me, and an americano for him) along with whatever pastry seemed appetizing; climbed up the carpeted stairs to the bright and airy second floor, painted red, to find a table; and, once installed, once our fellow friends and participants had arrived, we would start. The event began, ostensibly, at 7 PM, though in reality the first 30 to 45 minutes were spent, as are the beginnings of most Iranian events, speaking about our lives, about our days, about the news, about Iran. Then, finally, once enough people had decided to get started, we would open our big books or our online copies, and we would begin to read the Shahnameh, the Persian Book of Kings.

I grew up around Persian poetry. As a child, this did not seem too unusual — granted, none of my friends at school went to poetry night every week, and other Persian adults seemed to be impressed whenever I recited a poem at an event, but broadly my familiarity with the art, specifically when it came to Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, did not strike me as particularly unique. It was only as I grew older, and especially as I started college, that it fully sunk in for me that most Iranian-Americans born in the United States were not familiar with Persian poetry or Persian literature at all. Some did not speak any Persian whatsoever; most spoke a little bit with their parents and their families, but could not read or write well; and a select few, usually those who visited family in Iran frequently or those who had gone to Persian classes, could both read and write, and were at least faintly familiar with the major literary figures of Iran, if not necessarily their work.

My father’s father was a man of many skills, and it is partly because of him that poetry has been of such import in my family. Having lost his own father at the age of 14 in Iran, and forced to work to support himself and his mother, he educated himself in night classes, developed skills as a scribe, worked in a newspaper office, became an English professor, and was eventually employed by the Ministry of Education. From his youth all the way to his death, he was fully immersed in the cultural and literary scene in his hometown of Mashhad, participating in innumerable poetry nights, hosting many himself, and forging friendships and acquaintances with such poetic powerhouses as Mehdi Akhavan Sales, Mahmoud Farrokh, Mohammad-Hossein Shahriar, and Ali Bagherzadeh, among others. He himself was a poet, reputed for his quick wit and fast improvisation, and he published a book of poetry and literary memoirs before he died.

Poetry night, for my grandfather, and for my father after him, were a central part of life in Iran. Because of poetry’s central importance in Persian culture, famed poets are almost more revered in the country than famous scientists. The backs of Iranian banknotes are adorned with the face of Ferdowsi, the tomb of Saadi, and the tomb of Hafez; students from elementary school onwards have poetry in some form as part of their standard curriculum; and the vast majority of people, both educated and illiterate, use poetry idiomatically in their everyday speech. Knowledge and wisdom is passed down, not in books or classes, but with poetic aphorisms. Persian as a language also lends itself well to poetry — one can express many thoughts with few words, and tight allusions to vast stories or metaphors give surprising depth to individual verses. As such, with poetry as both a social and linguistic cornerstone, poetry nights or their equivalents have existed in Iran for countless years, from the courts of kings and princes in the Middle Ages (when poetry was the court art), to my father’s childhood living room in the 1970s. Gatherings like those became excuses for friends to see each other, for news to be spread, for new acquaintances and connections to be made. Usually they happened weekly or monthly, and rotated between various participants’ houses, giving everybody a chance to host; the younger aspiring poets would read their new works and get criticism and notes from the more experienced and well-known.

If I’m honest, a lot of times I really wanted to not go to poetry nights. I’d beg off, citing homework; I’d drag my feet and moan about how tired I was; I’d come to the café, only to sit at another table, watching funny videos instead of working, until my dad would wise up and drag me back to the main table to read my section. I was a child, at first, running around and reading and playing with the other kids my age who would sometimes come there (those days were the most fun). Later, as a teenager, I would sulk in the corner with my laptop, wanting to hang out with my friends. However, I would always (albeit sometimes reluctantly) capitulate, and take some time to sit with everyone else, talking about my life and theirs. I would read my section of the Shahnameh, 10 or 15 lines, when it was my turn, reciting the ancient words and giving my idea as to the meaning along the way. I often wondered why my father insisted on me being there, why people actually came to the event every week, why a select group liked poetry nights so much that they formed their own branch up in Berkeley, starting the Shahnameh from scratch. What brought them there, and what kept bringing them back?

The interior of Red Rock Coffee, the café I went to every week

I understood, I think, when my father took me to a poetry night in Iran. It was actually on a Friday morning, and I followed him along the streets from my grandmother’s house, on the uneven sidewalks and under the blistering heat of the sun, until we came to a certain door. We rang, and followed the woman who let us in down a set of stairs to a small room underground. The floor was covered in Persian rugs (of course), and all the chairs alongside the walls were filled with people listening attentively. The young woman at the desk in the front was reading a poem she’d written into the microphone, and an old man with a cane and suspenders suggested a different word than the one she’d used, to make the meter flow better. Another old man, stooping down, offered me tea. He was barefoot, and wearing what looked like pajamas. To my surprise, my father immediately got up and bowed his head, and introduced me to him — it was the host himself, a famous poet and a popular satirist, who was barefoot, serving me tea!

It felt weird, being among people I’d heard stories of, whose poems my father had read to me. It didn’t feel majestic or ceremonial; it felt like old friends coming together over tea to discuss what they loved to do, and to keep a vital part of the culture alive. I myself, in that event, went up to the stage, to the old desk with its microphone bent out of shape. I recited a poem of my grandfather’s to these poets, old and young, many of whom had been friends of his, and they applauded, and reminisced about him, and thanked my father for keeping his legacy alive after his death. I understood, then, why my father still came to these events, even though he had been cut off from them for years in the United States; why he himself created a poetry night, on the second floor of a café in Mountain View, and wanted me to come; why doctors, lawyers, engineers at Google, grad students, and olympiadwinners all came, and came regularly — to feel connected again to the culture that they had grown up with, to find a community, even in diaspora, even in exile.

My coffee would have gone cold, and the homework that I would have half-heartedly half-done would sit beside my laptop. The poetry night was over, everyone having read their turn until the time ran out. Some would leave, because of early mornings or long commutes. Others, after talking and chatting for a while, would proceed down the street (or drive to a restaurant and meet there) for that oh-soimportant after-poetry-night ritual — the Shām-nameh, as I had dubbed it in my childhood, the Book of Dinner. We would eat, pizza or pasta or pho, and discuss our lives, and the situation in Iran, my father and his friends meeting up and enjoying a poem, enjoying a meal.

We finished the Shahnameh seven years ago, and that café in Mountain View is still there, but alive only in my memory. The core poetry night group disbanded, but my father is still in touch with most of them, and meets regularly (as do I) with a few. Though the weekly event no longer occurs, its effects are still present, in the friends of my family and in my own skills. I only went to poetry nights because my father asked me to, yes; I was a child, and then a teenager, and I wanted to do what I wanted to do. However, I don’t regret going at all, and I’m thankful to my father — he made that poetry night for himself, but also for me.

I now have this same connection to Iranian culture, even though I was born outside it; I have a passion for Persian poetry, even though I’ve never lived in Iran for longer than a month. Persian poetry and language gives us the ability to connect both with those who left their lives behind in Iran, as well as with their children, who have never lived there.

Galvanized by my experiences, and taking a page out of my father’s book, I myself created a Persian poetry night at UC Berkeley last year, which has proved surprisingly popular — only a few friends come most weeks, but at least thirty different people have visited at some point, many of whom I had never met before. Poetry nights, be they in a poet’s house in Mashhad or a café in Mountain View or in a classroom in Berkeley, can knit our community together even as the rest of the world tries to tear it apart. Read Hafez, or Ferdowsi, or Rumi, even Nima or Akhavan Sales or Shamloo — and, if you do it with friends, even if you barely understand what the hell is going on, you will be connected, for a moment, to a vast and ancient culture, and you will help it live on even longer. □