I was reading an article, written by Eliza Griswold, for Outside magazine, dated May 2014.
She talks of her experiences on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2004, until it became too dangerous for her, as an American woman to stay.
She described what she missed most, after she left.
She missed the stories that the women told.
She told of how the men talked about their weapons and the price of cartridges.
Women, however, told remarkable local stories of "the village blood feud", or stories of the community, including sex, death and war.
Eliza Griswold states in her article,
"Men here may eat first, but Women hold the power of the Story."
She goes on to describe a form of folk poetry, called the Landay, which she discovered whilst living amongst the women, in the refugee camp in Kabul.
The poems are two lines, with 22 syllables, and contain the essence of a woman's life experience.
Ms Griswold says, " these poems are short and dangerous, like the poisonous snake for which they are named."
A Landay is a scrap of song, created by, and mainly for, illiterate Pashtun women. This is an age old tradition, which used to be celebrated openly, but is now mostly banned by the Taliban.
A Landay is a lilting kind of couplet, that expresses anger, or a lament, expressing a form of social satire, a poetic catharsis.
Now, if a woman is caught singing her Landay, she risks being killed by her husband, or by the Taliban.
I was fascinated by this article because it embraces the very nature of women, bravely and rebelliously finding their voice, even in the most oppressive of cultural environments, and despite the threat of persecution and death.
Eliza Griswold returned to the Afghanistan border in 2012 in a cautious and clandestine effort to collect Landays. She has compiled her collection in a book entitled, "Landays from contemporary Afghanistan", published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
With relevance to this blog, not only is this a fine example of women finding their voice, but of a passionate poetic art form, for promoting social change.
In conclusion, I would like to quote a Landay from Eliza Griswold's article.
"When sisters sit together, they're always praising their brothers
When brothers sit together, they're selling sisters to others."
She talks of her experiences on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2004, until it became too dangerous for her, as an American woman to stay.
She described what she missed most, after she left.
She missed the stories that the women told.
She told of how the men talked about their weapons and the price of cartridges.
Women, however, told remarkable local stories of "the village blood feud", or stories of the community, including sex, death and war.
Eliza Griswold states in her article,
"Men here may eat first, but Women hold the power of the Story."
She goes on to describe a form of folk poetry, called the Landay, which she discovered whilst living amongst the women, in the refugee camp in Kabul.
The poems are two lines, with 22 syllables, and contain the essence of a woman's life experience.
Ms Griswold says, " these poems are short and dangerous, like the poisonous snake for which they are named."
A Landay is a scrap of song, created by, and mainly for, illiterate Pashtun women. This is an age old tradition, which used to be celebrated openly, but is now mostly banned by the Taliban.
A Landay is a lilting kind of couplet, that expresses anger, or a lament, expressing a form of social satire, a poetic catharsis.
Now, if a woman is caught singing her Landay, she risks being killed by her husband, or by the Taliban.
I was fascinated by this article because it embraces the very nature of women, bravely and rebelliously finding their voice, even in the most oppressive of cultural environments, and despite the threat of persecution and death.
Eliza Griswold returned to the Afghanistan border in 2012 in a cautious and clandestine effort to collect Landays. She has compiled her collection in a book entitled, "Landays from contemporary Afghanistan", published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
With relevance to this blog, not only is this a fine example of women finding their voice, but of a passionate poetic art form, for promoting social change.
In conclusion, I would like to quote a Landay from Eliza Griswold's article.
"When sisters sit together, they're always praising their brothers
When brothers sit together, they're selling sisters to others."
RSS Feed
