Nathalie Handal Talks About Teaching Poetry in Afghanistan

A new interview over at BOMBLOG: poet Nathalie Handal tells Rattapallax editor Ram Devineni of her recent experience visiting Afghanistan, where "she taught a poetry workshop to young Afghani women students at Kabul University and participated in many literary dialogues with other poets from the country." Specifically, they chat about the role of the poet in the world (Handal is pretty well-traveled--she's in Dubai in the photo above; and you can watch her in Andalucia at Rattapallax TV, for instance); meeting other writers in Afghanistan; and her approach on teaching in another country:

RD What was your experience in Afghanistan and with its people?

NH “To understand where you left the sun, you must know where you discovered it.” I wrote that line in my notebook during one of the workshops, but I am not certain what triggered it. Was it the students insisting: “We want peace. We want to live. We don’t want Taliban?” Was it their persisting question: “Will you tell others who we really are—lively, endearing, welcoming?” I understood their need. I heard their heartbeats, earth-beats, the music that stirred deep in their folklore. I found the people beautiful—a cross between Asia and the Middle East—their piercing green or black eyes, almond shaped or slightly slanted, the men’s tall, often statuesque, well built frames. Faces that kept the breadth of history. It was also a gift to meet writers I had read while editing the Norton anthology, Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia & Beyond. I felt close to the language—Pashto and Dari—which at the base is Farsi but has Arabic and Hebrew words. The students inspired me to try to communicate absence—what it feels like to exist in a world where absence, in time, will shatter myth. In the end, I discovered a people I knew and wanted to know more about. And surprisingly, roses—red, orange, mauve—grew everywhere in the city. I left Kabul with that striking image—yellow roses in the ruins.

RD How do you teach poetry or run a workshop in different countries? Is there universal themes or approaches?

NH There are two workshops that seem to work everywhere I go. The first, “Poetry as Cultural Voice,” which explores ancestry, gender, cultural memory, and identity; how our ancestry, the languages we speak, the memories we have inherited (stories told by our grandparents, parents), and the places we have lived affect the poems we write and how we write them. The second, “PoetryMap,” is a workshop for poets to sharpen their writing skills and expand the imaginative boundaries in their poems. The premise of the workshop is that a poem is like a map, from its early stages to the end, which provides a chart for possible journeys. The explored analogy of writing/making poem-maps encourages students to expand the spaces in which they navigate literally, culturally, and metaphorically. The workshop encourages students to have a great dialogue with their work and the world.

A short film also accompanies their conversation. Visit BOMBLOG for more.