Saba Pakdel
Biography
Saba Pakdel is a poet, modernist scholar, and PhD student in the English department at University of Victoria. She completed her BA and MA in English language and literature in Iran. She earned her second MA in English at Simon Fraser University in 2021.
In May 2022, she published her chapbook In-Between by above / ground press. Saba has attended and coordinated literary workshops and poetry readings; published poems, translations, and essays; and collaborated in stage plays as a playwright and backstage filmmaker. Photography is her occasional and non-verbal means of communication with the world.
Saba specializes in migration studies and contemporary literature with a focus on exile, refugee, and immigration problems, particularly in works of migrant authors from the Middle East and Maghreb. Her research addresses the identity formation of migrants away from Euro-centric formulations based in twentieth century ideas about migration, largely derived from post-WWII circumstances, toward a contemporary reckoning with experiences of migration.
Website: www.sabapakdel.com
Poetics Statement
“I’m an exophonic author writing poetry in two languages: one that I was born into, and the other that I migrated into. My work is a display of two languages, English and Persian, that are not semantically in conversation with each other. What happens to be in conversation, though, is the self-translation of experiences into concepts. In my recent chapbook In-Between I’m thinking through a larger project of de-exoticizing languages other than English in poetry publication.”
Sample of Poet's Work
“غم is dissonant”
leaving behind a lineage of absolute risk
خاطراتِ درهم پیچ و بی‌‌پژواک
a sweaty night that echoes you’re the cry of every cell
تا تمامیِ حفره‌های تهاجمی ذهن‌ات
opens to a pain-excruciating chronic void
من به انزوای تو در قعر خودم وابسته‌ام
yet you are the farthest as a lump’s growing in my words
در شک یک "آن" که نکند تو بیمار باشی و این سلول‌های نکبتِ سرطانی
we do metamorphosize into a stranger of ourselves
و غریب می‌مانیم در هجوم (نکند هرگز) نبودن‌ات
a metastasis growth when you grow smaller day by day
تا خالیِ نبودن‌ات سنگین‌ترین حضور جهان شود
yet tumors can sir, yes sir: she is fully aware!
چه بهانه‌ای برای تراشیدن شرابیِ موهای
we are treating death in an ironic way
به آنی نزدیک می‌شود در ارتعاش محوی از زنده نماندنمان
And we leave behind the trauma of being witnesses
“Mo[u]rning Molly: Absence Re-Imagined”
A Creative Reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses — Chapter 18, “Penelope”
absence
غیاب
non-appearance
عدم حضور
disappearance
نبودن
not present
غیبت
the state of not being
غایب از نظر
not to be
"مرا/ تو/ بي سببی / نيستی / به راستی / صلت كدام قصيده ای / ای غزل؟"
lost in between the chapters
ضد حضور
unable to be
ناپیدایی
not being as opposed to non-being and/or an intentionally-not-alike Penelope kind of being
and … chapter 18
- Mo[u]rning Molly – Exclamation mark
Paragraph break
Uppercase —Dawn / Friday— go:
(Molly’s not the author, though.)
And I’m not a white Molly!
زن یا زنانه – معادله‌ی بیخودی‌ست
به پهلو که از آن بیرون نه نیامده بودم
لم داده بود به دنده‌های‌اش
تصویر تو از انسان، مرگ یک خدای یونانی بود
یا خلق یک نتاقض؟
morning:
the premature rise of the sun
a body being written upon
maybe breakfast in bed this time
closing a long night onto tomorrow
on an indifferent note
“eight poppies”
it’s not even “the eighth of September” yet
but the day of “weaving and unweaving”
chaos in a single moment that moves into your ears
and weaving away …
narratives of an absent presence
interrupting a not-a-chance-linear night sleep
روزمزه‌های کسالت‌بار و پیش‌پاافتاده
تا هم‌آغوشی‌هایی که تا ابدیت
به نکبت و بیزاری یاد می‌شوند
در خراب‌آبادی بی انتها
لاینقطع رشته‌های بافته را ریسه می‌کنیم
ما، درون ذهن او تقلا می‌کنیم تا
blooming red
narratives of blood
a day has thus begun
even though he is still gone
“let us have a bit of fun…”
I despise the sun, the rise, the beginnings yet “the sun shines for you today yes”
mourning:
the untimely death
you were fine – “and it makes your lips pale anyhow”
- did I this time or any other time?
a bed holding our bodies tight
white sheets wrapped around – “the whole blessed time”
morning:
the second day forces its light
pressing my eyes shut to see
- “though I laughed I’m not a horse”
day sweeps in
don’t dare call me “the adulteress”
I was not around
but absent like – “like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”
mourning:
dying is a habit of the living, “Poldy”
life, the exception
Rudy also my son
am I authored to reclaim memory – oh, a once-upon-a-time eternal mo[u]rning!
- “Im extremely sorry Mrs Bloom believe me without making it too marked the first time”
narratives of a prolonged death
the untangled
the re-imagined layered present
the dawn closing on the shadow of a milky breast
round ample full
a “yes”
- I’m a regular person on a regular day with a regular tragedy! You bet!
a bed leaving our bodies to go
eternity is an eight
round like two breasts entangled
knotted when unweaving the ever woven passing of time
- Oh, please do not hold me responsible for “unwriting” your novel
or an afterthought to be so feminine – a coda to the meals already served – not even with a cherry on top!
ابدیت حفره‌ی بی سرانجامی‌ست
پیچک‌کشیده تا نهایت یک آن
که تو نگاهی بدوزی به آخرین نخ
من ریسه کنم
ما دور شویم
what I remember is forgetting
what’s the word-- I’m losing them
“jawbreakers” that fancy up your everyday sentences
we’re sharing pain, you and I
“let us go then” yes
let us stay in time yes
let us be the eternity yes
lullaby
absence is a presence that never is
centuries would not pass
in an hourglass that’s falling
upside down
you did not believe in time
yet sand runs through
timelessness in a bubble
and oceans dry
does it all go back by turning the other end up?
what to do about the restlessness of the sun
the rebellious Icarus
falling to the borders of your stripped body
melts
in between your thighs
into a mirage appearing closer
yet absence still is
not standing afar
to outdistance recollections
here, is no fear
here is the fear
tall city towers fall
rows of pine trees succumb
a crowd wanders inside me
with hideous faces through the falling
I am pregnant with a disaster
mother lullabies
time follows you all the way up
don’t try to move backward
shadows
are not the darkest side of absence
when trees are the presence that never is