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CVVC, and each one gives you a sort of a music. I respect this thing, but it is so difficult
and so complicated.
EM: In the traditional poem, what can a poet do to make a line fit the meter, for
example, if it is 15 syllables and he wants only 14? Can he change spelling?
BS: If you change the spelling you get something. We call it hozana, ‘poem,’
leng. 213 Leng describes a man who has some difficulty with his legs so that when he
walks, he can’t walk in a normal way. So if you change the spelling, you’ll get a leng
poem. And this is not good for a poet to have a leng. It’s a handicapped line. You have to
change the words and find the right one which gives the same meaning with the right
measurement of the syllables. To make the total of the line go with the other lines, 16 or
15 or 8 or 9. It’s up to you.
EM: Sometimes in American poetry, and I think you see this sometimes in
Shakespeare, he will take a letter out. For example, the word “shower.” Like a rain
shower. But it will be spelled as if it is one syllable not two. You say the word “shower”
but when it is said in the poem its ‘show’r,’ and it’s spelled s-h-o-w-‘-r. The ‘e’ is taken
out. Do you understand? So, can you do this in Kurdish?
BS: Yes, we do this in Kurdish. This is because Kurdish has some subdialects.
The people in Zaxo [where Sindî is from] speak differently from the people in Amedy
and Akre and Dohuk. Sometimes the people in Amedy omit one letter, one sound, when
they speak, while in Zaxo they pronounce the whole word. So our poets here or in
Sulemaniya or in Hawler (the Kurdish name for Erbil) get an advantage from these
differences between the subdialects. I am from Zaxo, but when the word I need doesn’t
go with my poem, I’ll take it out and use the same word in a subdialect that consists of
one syllable, not two, like in my subdialect. For example, I take it from Akrê or Amedîya
and use it in my poem to go with other lines in my poem. Do you understand me now?
213 The word hozan is another word for a poem or poetry. The word Sindî describes here is leng, or lang,
which Chyet (2003:348) lists as meaning ‘lame, limping’ or ‘awkward.’