Magin_Edward-thesis

346
you could say―satellite TV came into Kurdistan and things from Syria came. So there
was a great opening up of the world towards Iraq. So all the norms were changed. These
factors, which we discussed, affected the norms of writing poetry, of visualizing things―
for example a tree, water, everything was changed. Even how to deal with your children,
your wife, took another form. It was the other way around, it was changed.
So this fast and successive change affected the way authors thought and wrote. In
1994, after these changes happened, there was a civil war among the Kurdish people. In
this year, 1994, a new movement called “Renovation Forever” grew and Mihsin Quçan
was leading it. At this stage, mosques and religious leaders, political parties, the
university, the whole of society with all the norms―all were like fire against this group,
because there was a feeling of pride in this group. This group lasted not so long, only two
years. And it was practicing everything, like civil life, in addition to writing poetry. So
this group was finished. Some people died, some people immigrated. But its effect is still
there, such as the poets who were under the effects of that group, as well as painters and
those who work in the theatre. Even the religious men―when they go, for example, on
Friday to the mosque, they admit that if there’s no renovation, there’s no life. These are
the changes that he says happened in poetry.
EM: You mentioned your poetry is psychological. Can you explain that and give
an example?
MQ: This is one example of psychological poetry, “Coming Back From Tired
Thinking.” It’s a long poem, but, for example, the psychological effect is that the poet is
describing, or is talking, to his sweetheart, to his beloved, saying:
“If your eyebrows were like more (untranscribable word) and your hair was gray,
you would be just like my mother.” So he’s making a comparison between his mother
and his beloved.
EM: So would you say this is just one theme of your poetry?
1985.
MQ: You can say it’s a theme, but it’s limited to a short period, from 1980 to