 Hi everyone. My name is Paula Heaney. I am your librarian liaison tonight filling in for John Smalley who's absent. Welcome to Kim Shuck's Poem Jam. We're very happy to have you here. A couple of announcements. First of all, you'll notice this event is being filmed. If you do not want to be filmed, please let someone know. If you will be reading a poem tonight and Kim has some sign-up sheets, some permission slips that say we're allowed to film you and reproduce it. Thank you to the Friends of the Library as well as some of the Preventors for the refreshments in the back. We appreciate that. The San Francisco Public Library acknowledges that we occupy the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramya Tush Auloni peoples who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. We recognize, we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. And as uninvited guests, we affirm their sovereign rights as first peoples and wish to pay our respects to the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramya Tush community to see upcoming partnership events with local Auloni and other Indigenous people and organizations. Go to the events page on our website and choose the topic first person and you'll see a lot of stuff coming up for November. And now on to tonight's event, a very special poem jam celebrating Iranian women and their struggles. We have special guests from Iranian women and network and Kim Shuck will take it from here. Thank you so much. I like lurking behind the podium personally. So my life has gotten incredibly complicated and therefore I could not tell you how many months ago I met Dana. It's some. We were at an event at Clarion Alley and I saw the quilts and we had a talk and it seemed very sensible to bring this issue into poem jam. Those of you who are fans of poem jam know that I make space for a lot of specific things, really specific readings and this one seemed really necessary because I think the issue of what Iranian women are going through was in the regular US news for about two weeks and then it kind of left and it's not there now and I think it's something people need to know about because women struggle here, women struggle there, the struggle of Native women in this country, women struggle is women struggle. It's all the same fight and so we have to pay attention to it. So I'm delighted that folks are here and because of what the topic is I'm pretty sure you don't want to continue to hear me run now. So I'm going to call to the microphone Dana Asna who will explain some things about the about Iwin. And there you are. Thank you very much Kim. It's an honor to know you and it's an honor to stand today here in front of all of you. My name is Dana Asna. I'm the founder and the CEO of a very small passionate non-profit, grassroots non-profit in actually originally started in the area but we are I don't know we are very global today. Our mission statement is empowering women through art and one of the recent project that we had because of the woman life freedom are the quilts that we brought with us today and later I ask Avida another board member and actually an active kind of a project manager of the quilt to talk about this with you too. I want to take a moment and talk about this that last year, September 15 there was a 22 years old girl Gina Massa Amini that's one of the recent one we did together. I was a actually young girl visiting Tehran and she got actually attacked by the force by the hijab police that they said your hijab is not proper. So she got this kind of a attack and she got to the hospital two days later she died and people rushed to the street because it was not only one incident and one girl 44 years an Iranian woman and actually a lot of Iranian they are in hostage of this government and this you know this country with a strong religious and patriotic kind of approach and especially the victim or the woman. A year has gone and it's amazing and it's I don't know what to call this but really just around the anniversary another girl is right now in the hospital in the coma with the same issue. She was again approaching to get to the metros and she got hold by the police and she hit her again in the head. In the past year we lost more than 500 young bright people a lot of them lost their eyes, children has been killed but all of that is just about that the people didn't didn't went back home. The women are actually not wearing hijab these days in Iran they pay high prices and they still keep you know resisting about it. So we wanted to bring the attention to woman life freedom and with our mission statement empowering women through art we got inspired by AIDS Memorial quilt and we were thinking oh my god they could raise awareness with the quilt and the quilt is the symbol of solidarity so we started launch this project January this year and within nine months we have gone we got more than 500 pieces I think these things maybe Avida can tell you more. I just want to say one more thing we bring the woman life freedom to every community because we think it started in Iran but it's so global and so universal that it goes beyond the border of the Iran if I think about the Afghan girl who is still waiting for the school after two years I cannot stop to cry and get you know my anger you know I need to manage my anger if I think about the some of actually at least I can say part of the American woman in this country that they lost their abortion right after 49 and half years and that they are they need to go back to a square one and fight for it and if I think about any woman who is still fighting for equal pay in actually first you know advanced countries so we think that we have a lot to share and there is a lot of a story to hear about every woman around the board and all the genders actually it's about discrimination and discrimination is something that we have a fight against it every day and we do not give up what is better than art with one quote I finished that and I love this quote about art that they say the art is to comfort the disturb and to disturb the comforts so we hope that this quote and this type of art is bringing it to you too thank you again for the opportunity I have shortly I have mentioned Avide and I want to ask her to come here because she's actually she has been the vehicle the big part of this quick project from day one and I would like to ask her to tell you just a little bit how powerful it has been until today and what is the next step thank you thank you so much for being here tonight for supporting the poetry night and also just to join us I as Dina said we started this project and launched it actually with getting the word out and in January 2023 we started receiving quilt pieces and the panels and putting them together for our displays and exhibits and it's been an amazing journey because we are receiving things from all over the world for this project and as Dina said up to now we've had over 500 pieces individual pieces that were sent to us mostly hand done some through digital media because they come from Iran or locations where they can't be mailed so it's just been amazing this project some people ask is it finished no it's not finished it's an ongoing project and if you like to participate there is cards there that tell you about the mentions and what you can do but it's ongoing and we would love for anybody to work on a 12 by 12 piece and send it to us so we can also sew it together and make more quilts we have reached out in more recent times to different communities we worked with the Cambodian migrant community yeah and got they expressed their feelings about discrimination in the quilts that they made this particular quilt right here was done on google campus people joined in men and women and they did different panels and they're all from different backgrounds not all are Persian and one that's back there is yet another example of just a group of women that got together in marine county and they wanted to collaboratively create one and so on and so on it's just been amazing so again I'd like to invite you to please let your friends know take some information with you and contribute to this cause and letting people just know about what is going on around the world especially right now in Iran anything else no oh yeah yeah yeah thank you we've had close to 20 different exhibits since we launched the project in January and two really large ones one we had at the golden gate park where we displayed all the quilts that we had until then and that was in June and we've had many more quilts created after that one and that was in the AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park and we just recently returned Dina actually recently returned from Long Beach State University where a women's conference was held and she took I think about 31 quilts big quilts out there to showcase so we've had two giant ones and a whole lot of smaller events so we're getting around letting people know what is happening and also to encourage them to let it all go and bring it down onto the quilts so that's it thank you so in addition to having some quilts available to look at we've got a few people who are going to be reading poems uh Rosita um Rosita and um and then and then Megan's going to be next okay sure sure she is not she is not putting her name anywhere she is not in public you cannot find her she has a nickname her name is Laili Hageer and if you wanted to find her poem I can find it you can look for her name Laili Hageer and that means that um we should tune our heart we should do it every day especially now that our heart is tired of this word then we should tune it almost every day and the song that we need to sing every day is hope thank you okay our next reader is Megan so much that was beautiful what does your drums say what does it say love wonderful thank you good evening I hope everybody can hear me my name is Mojde Naziri but because everybody in America butchers it so I changed it to Megan so you can call me either or and I can respond to both uh the background for the poem that I translated is about a poem that uh it was written by a singer-songwriter Shervin Hodgepour and in 2023 interestingly for the first time Grammys introduced a category for the most impactful song for social change and this song won so I the moment that I heard it I decided to translate it poetry in Farsi is melodic so it has a lot of rhythm so bear with me there are two names that I'm going to quote it for you and you may not be familiar one of them is Vali Aster which is one of the most famous beautiful tree-lined trees in Iran a lot of people walk down there and it's beautiful so it's everybody in Iran knows it and the second thing is Perus which was unfortunately passed away one of the most endangered Iranian cheetahs that was hanging on to his life at that time was alive so I'm going to start with that but a little bit of background about the song the song called Four became the national anthem of all Iranians during the worldwide protest last year Shervin Hodgepour the pop singer who sang the song was in prison and later on was forced to apologize the song was written consequently with the death of Massa Amini the 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish who died while in custody of hijab police in Iran what started it was actually a series of tweets Iranians started sending tweets that started for what do we want to change why we want to have change and I'm going to read some of these tweets there were around 1300 tweets tweets it started for example some of the examples for my student who asked me if there is a future for me for the stolen lives for calling us filthy when we got our periods for my sister who was forced to marry at 12 and became a mother at 14 for all the girls that you raped in your custody so on Thursday September 29 2022 a unknown Twitter user gathered all these tweets it became 1300 tweets in a file and said I gathered this file and will kiss the hands of that artist who can create an impactful telling piece to work with it and Shervin Hodgepour obviously answered the call so I'm going to read the poem for the joy of the street dance for the fear of kissing at a glance I'm going to give you a background before reading it again so in Iran kissing in streets holding hands showing a pair is just forbidden well there were years years of patriarchy and women are forced to wear hijab and obviously they don't like it for the joy of the street dance for the fear of kissing at a glance for my sister your sister our sisters for changing mind full of blisters for the dreams of young dumpster divers for this economy and its ruthless shysters for this toxic air you gave us breathe for valley ass threes and all your deceits for peru's fear of extension for the forbidden dog's restrictions for the non-stop ceaseless tears for the return of the memories that never cleared for happiness in times of sorrow for the students for their tomorrow for promising heaven and your reasons for all the talents in prisons for the afghan children your dumbness for a life full of dullness for all the nonsense chants empty promises and rants for a sense of peace feeling light foreseeing the sun after a long night for the insomnia pills for sedation for the man land cultivation for that girl you mistreat him for woman life freedom for freedom for freedom for freedom thank you i would like to read a very short poem that by my one of my favorite poets silvia plas she has a poet one about a metaphor of mushrooms for women and their strength silvia plas is a contemporary american artist american poet i'm not sure if it's american but it's english writing yeah english writing so it's uh resembling women to mushrooms that they're growing fast we diet on water on crumbs of shadow bland mannered asking little or nothing so many of us so many of us we are shelves we are tables we are meek we are edible nudgers and shovers in spite of ourselves our kind multiplies our kind multiplies we shall by mourning inherit the earth our foot is in the door thank you dina did me the most incredible honor um and that i read at the show in the um and no that's not the one i was asked to read in the show of uh the um quilt in the park um and uh and i wrote a poem which my tablet is not letting me see at the moment it's okay it's okay i'm gonna try to remember it so those of you who look back at other um uh what instances of poem jam will notice that i usually wear my hair braided and i usually wear hat and i'm not doing that tonight in part because of what these women were beaten to death for this is going to be a little different from the one you heard before because i'm conjuring people ask me if poetry is important and i will tell you that it is because they kill us for it bury me with the standing women the women who are standing up for their right to wander the streets with their head bare bury me with the standing women and bury me with my hair unbraided it is my absolutely enormous pleasure to invite a poet to our microphone who i've enjoyed for quite some time and who uh i've had the great privilege of working with on a really large project called manifest differently their poem is on a mural in um clarion alley through that project um and i've had just great enjoyment listening to the the work that they've done for this particular project so um also they have their books with them and i have i i tracked it down i have actually bought seven different copies of scattered arrows because it's very good and there i run into people who i want to have have it so i have purchased it and given it away a number of times it is a behavior i i recommend but also you probably want a copy of it for yourself very good work please welcome to our microphone dan iran thank you everyone for being here tonight i am utterly honored and privileged to be here um um what we're doing right now reading singing being in public is not allowed in iran for women and for gender non-conforming and for queer women um i think of the people who lost their lives last year specifically and deeply understand how my legacy is to raise their voices as well because they are not able to speak for themselves i think of nika chakra rami who was only 16 and her girlfriend lived in a different country they texted each other setting each other queer love notes and then nika became another face that we all recognized in her death and not in her life um i'm really indebted to the women of the husha organization in the early 1990s in the san francisco bay area who wrote newsletters about what it was like to be queer and iranian in the 1990s when i was only like two three four years old and i had the opportunity to find those newsletters at the james c hormel center here at the san francisco public library and did research for this poem this was information that i did not know for most of my life until about five years ago and this poem is called hadith traditions for the closet it's a long one stick with me a is for ahmadi dajad who stands and claims in iran we don't have homosexuals what he means is in america we come out to our families but in iran we don't burden our families with this knowledge gay liberation is a western phenomenon whereas gay acts are universal a is for amrod persian for the beardless youth of male beauty hurled towards a person who engages in homosexual acts a is for ali a publicly hanged and executed for suspected homosexuality in 2005 at gorgon a northern iranian town and buried in an unmarked grave a is for asylum denied to those muslims quagmired in turkey deprived of safety and exile from their homelands b is for ban upheld by the us supreme court we won't let any muslims venezuelans or north koreans inside b is for biruni outsiders looking in bordered and crowding the queer internet for a sense of belonging and community b is for barbaric what the west thinks of iran a bitter legacy held well over 50 years c is for coming out an american invention imported c is for contradictions kissing men on each cheek but never on the lips d is for that bulb persian for crawling over over the gentle slope of your broken down back d is for a double life for as long as you don't ask and don't tell your family will tolerate you d is for disowned if you don't d is for dyke a word that has no equivalent in persian d is for death threats what awaits you back home for when you come out abroad e is for exile for if you come out of the closet there go your family your friends the social death branded upon your honor e is for execution not limited to political dissidents shaw supporters or transgressive women e is for extermination the sour slaughter of countless iranian gays for indulging in their satanic urges f is for firing squad crouched down and aimed forward with their rifles straight f is for fundamentalists the strain of islam that has now been rooted in iran for over 40 years g is for gulampareh persian for boy ravisher once a rite of passage into manhood yet if you ravish too much you risk becoming the ravished h is for hausha persian for denial pushing away this something outside of iranian culture h is for hostage for while they were lesbians drinking at mods and amelias lesbian bars in san francisco's there was american hostages in iran h is for homosexual genocide an extermination campaign headed by the islamic republic of iran hidden from international view until 1990 11 years of death swept away i is for islamic revolution a theocratic regime democratically voted into power i is for inflict stand the condemned straight slice in two with the sword then be head well positioned with legs apart once the corpse falls down set fire and burn to ashes or to save time dig a hole set the homosexual on fire and bro them in the hole i is for ignored j is for justice the judge's choice beheading by sword stoned to death thrown from a mountain murdered under the rubble of a wall demolished on your head or simply burned alive j is for june the spirit the soul the life stripped away k is for husha persian for procurer of pussy lady smoking cigarettes to signal to the men on the street k is for kuhn hush the procurer of ass clean-shaven men in tight pants with clutched purses held tightly in the crook of their arms elis for la vote the persian word for sodomy punishable by death elis for the lashes i would receive for kissing my wife elis for the longing inside to see the mountain i am named after yet with every word i write the chasm between that dream and reality widen m is for mariam qatun mochara the first trans woman in iran who paved the way for those behind her m is for margba america death to america or rather death to american policies sanctions or st authorized coups n is for nuclear iran's first program to enrich uranium co-sponsored by the united states in the 1950s now we withdraw and we sanction o is for outsider as i linger on the fringe farcy rusting on my tongue struggling to find the narratives of other queer iranians o is for ostracized o is for overdue p is for purge an exercise in futility as seeds of dissent planted themselves between landmines still buried in abadon p is for persian not iranian conjuring up exotic images of cats and carpets q is for queer a word that has no translation in persian r is for repressed the inability to write lgbt refugee on your asylum application because then they'll know know everyone will know r is for regime rooted for 40 years r is for religion the cross pollination of christianity to islam passing on the biblical judgment for same-sex acts s is for the secret police who might be looking around any corner to catch you report you put you on trial in jail or in a noose s is for shame t is for taboo t is for tasha core gratitude i am thankful for my birth in this country u is for underground where the queer community is hidden from prying eyes and shiras terran esfahan u is for unlawful acts u is for the unknown all the persian letters of the alphabet that never sunk into the worlds of my brain u is for the united states forever entangled for oil and control v is for victim v is for the vexation for we are subject to the same imperial ills against our mental colonization w is for wachsner rex wachsner the first journalist to reveal in 1990 the organized campaign of homosexual extermination the islamic republic of iran planned in private meetings x is for the unknown for all the women who weren't taught to read who didn't know how to write their love down to find their self despite a beating from a father brother or husband y is for yani in karmikoni you mean this is the work that you're doing writing z is for z-ball beauty in all of our ways and z is for zinith the highest point we have yet to reach for we have so much farther to go my name is an arad thank you i've said this before after deniz read you can't say i didn't warn you brilliant work i'm really grateful for everybody who's made tonight possible i would like to invite people to look around at the quilts take flyers take flyers for the upcoming shows here at the library people have brought snacks there are snacks i'm going to go have a snack and give yourselves a hand for being here people watching the video later give yourself a hand for watching the video and form yourself about other people's struggles the project the the big project i'm involved in is called manifest differently and it came about from my from my end of it i'm one of the two co-curators it came apart from my end of it because i thought as a native woman that people knew that we were murdered regularly and kidnapped and let it happen and i found out people didn't know that that was happening and it made me wonder what was happening to other folks i didn't know about inform yourself about other people's struggles because really they're all the same struggle thank you so much