Dr. Hiva Panahi met with Pen of America

Hiva Panahi, author and academic with Kurdish origins who survived from political persecution in Athens, Greece, met with staff of International Pen in NYC. During her discussion of her life in first Iran and then while living in exile in Greece, she said, "Greek authorities have been selling my life all these years. I was considered a source of income and personal development for them, and because I was not an easy case they found people in academics places and persecuted me. I was in a trap of death and this tragedy has a big cost for my health and destroyed everything which I have built in 18 years life in Greece. It's not a secret Iranian regime is "generous" to pay for political persecution everywhere......"

A woman’s little gripes, Hiva Panahi

I have been in New York just five months but I have already had an emotional attachment to this city. This January I was in Manhattan and was met again with simple things like the simple smiling of people and that was wonderful. In my time at Columbia University I had taken the road to learn about this place by luck with no program and no information. The magical buildings with incredible spiritual aura that was written by Pro Ecclesia Dei. I stumbled into the library with great esthetic; it was a blessing and I had a rare sensation of gentleness. I said hello to Homer, Aristotle, Plato and Cicero. I sat down in the corner near the entry and for hours I had conversation with the statute of Athena; this atmosphere moved me so much. My broken health, my broken life and broken career, there were all the broken pieces of my life - like a prayer for new life in the new city, in New York City.

A woman’s little gripes, Hiva Panahi

Pleasant surprises may not be many but they arrive as essential truths. They come to erase the traces of those weaklings who blocked the flow of our lives. They come to give a potent end to the era of the carnivores we happen to meet, who hurt us in the corners of our lives. Pleasant surprises arise from pure logic, nesting in distant and nearby places.

They are slow to appear, but when they arrive they are light for the eyes.
Truly, in pure logos  flourish the friendliest, most wise human thoughts. Truly logos is discovery. Beyond doubt the experience of truth is poetic, to fill space and time ....


05.12.2017,NYC

An letter from late great Kurdish thinker and poet Maaref Aghaei for Hiva Panahi

This letter belong the late great Kurdish poet and thinker Maref Agaei in 1994 for me. 

He wrote to me" Dear Hiva, your poetry style writing has a powerful feeling and a deep thought, I praise these short poems with such great meaning. I received two of your new poems and I hope we can publish them as soon is possible.  

Please keep on writing!Forward for other poems from you

Dr. Hiva Panahi in The documenta 14 Reader

The main book of documenta 14 takes the form of a reader, evoking the various meanings associated with the term. The documenta 14 Reader explores—in essay, allegory, poem, historical legal document, and hybrid literary other—the discursive and practical concerns of the project, such as debt and gift, the coloniality of power, economies of the exhibition, and languages (and other currencies) without remainder. A critical anthology that reflects on history in order to better envision the present and reconceptualize the future, the Reader features both newly commissioned and foundational texts as well as image portfolios that illustrate the expansive scope—at once temporal and geographic—of historical artists and actors included in the documenta 14 project.
With contributions by Tony Bennett, Ross Birrell, Maria Boletsi, Jacques Derrida, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, W. E. B. Du Bois, Silvia Federici, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Yannis Hamilakis, Candice Hopkins, Quinn Latimer, Isabell Lorey, Sylvère Lotringer, Antonio Negri, Pauline Oliveros, Hiva Panahi, Paul B. Preciado, Adam Szymczyk, and others

Edited by Quinn Latimer and Adam Szymczyk 712 pages, 153 color illustrations
Hardcover, 17.7 × 22.1 cm
Separate editions in English, German, and Greek
Publisher: Prestel

Retail price: 35 Euro
ISBN 978-3-7913-5657-0

Τα δακρυσμένα μάτια ήταν της άνοιξης, Χίβα Παναχί

Τα δακρυσμένα μάτια ήταν της άνοιξης

Νυχτολαμπούν στο κήπο

Σκιάζουν τις ρίζες του μεγάλου ελάτου 

Να ακούγεται το ποτάμι
Να σου λείπει η θάλασσα

Ανάβουν τα γιορτινά φώτα
Φέρνει ζάλη ο χαρούμενος κόσμος 

Ενω μπερδεψαν τα δακρυσμενα ματια με καποιο πινακα
Τιμολογησε το καθε δακρυ στραμενη στην κατευθυνση του βορεια
Τι είναι να καταγεσαι απο τα αρχαια μαρμαρα

είναι της άνοιξης
Τα μνυμεια 

 Χίβα Παναχί ΝΥ, 30.3.2017  

" A man from ashes"by Hiva Panahi

 
Dreams come from far away places
the stones, the birds and I take on new forms of life
dreams have their own road
and we live far away these days, like dreams 





Reference: 
1) From my second collection " A man from ashes" Austerity Measures, The New Greek Poetry, edited by Karen Van Dyck, trans. Maria Margaronis

World Poetry Day March 21, in NYC at McNally Jackson bookstore

This year the World Poetry Day will be a memorable day to all of us, and this event is co-sponsored by the Black Sea Networks at Columbia University.
That would honour the real face of the people that they are: committed and transformation of poetry such a strong structure of human civilization; professor Karen Van Dyck a literary critic, teacher and author, from Columbia University through the world of ideas and dreaming words as powerful poetry; It is deep emotion for me and I will be there too..
*****A portion of book sale proceeds from the evening will be donated to the ACLU and books by the participants, as well as Austerity Measures, will be available http://www.mcnallyjackson.com/event/austerity-measures-new-greek-poetry

Dr. Hiva Panahi talked about her poetry and life in NYC

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am deeply moved and overjoyed being here in NY with all of you. I'm also excited to be in the conference room of the workers' union which brings forth ideas  that have been a source of inspiration for the whole world.

Dear friends, brothers, and sisters, I come from my Kurdish homeland, which has been divided during the last century by the major forces into four separate entities in four different countries. My people, the Kurds, are now split and divided in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. In every part of Kurdistan, my people are forbidden to speak our language and are stripped of our natural right to practice our culture. I know it seems so incredible and extreme but this is the tragic truth. It's like forbidding a rose from being a rose. Kurdish people are strong-willed and have deep-rooted beliefs and aspirations for freedom and respect for life. This is why these superpowers did not succeed in carrying out their evil plan of genocide, the plan to destroy the Kurdish culture.

My people not only resisted and invented ways to survive but they also created a high spiritual identity. I come from an intellect which has been continuously under harsh persecution to this day. Generations of writers, poets and artists have been sacrificing their lives for the Kurdish culture.

As a Kurd of the Diaspora, I have also lived 17 years of my life in Greece. Those years have been a gift as I was able to connect with the highest institutions of the generous Greek culture and its spiritual traditions. I managed to give back to my new country my meager intellectual gifts as a poet and as a scientist, but life was still difficult. Being invisible in intellectual spaces, I suffered for many years under the persecution. As a result I lost everything.

During all those dark years, my poetry was like a light coming from angels to save me; my writing brought me here,  became my wings; became my spiritual passport to the United States and here rise again.

   My wish is that cultural creations such as poetry, will give mental and spiritual strength towards stability throughout the world. Poetry must remain as the immortal logos, like light... 

Dr. Hiva Panahi, Book party 

4.12.2016, NYC    

Poetry Against Oppression – A Kurdish-Iranian Human Rights Advocate Dr. Hiva Panahi

Poetry Against Oppression – A Kurdish-Iranian Human Rights Advocate
When:January 11, 2017 @ 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm
Discussion Presentation Reading Screening Signing

As a lifelong advocate for rights and opposition to human trafficking, Hiva Panahi speaks eloquently and passionately about the worldwide struggle for freedom and dignity, and especially about the special oppression of women and girls. Her poetry, at times heartbreaking, at times uplifting, reflects the lives of women in Iran, as well as the experience of a refugee seeking shelter in a foreign land.

Dr. Panahi will read from her first collection of poetry in English, after which she will answer questions about her journey and her art.
This post was replicated from another site's calendar feed.
This entry was posted on November 8, 2016.
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Foreign Land, Hiva Panahi from the " Secrets of the Snow"

Foreign Land
The heart became a museum
The only one who comes to visit
Is loneliness
2000 

From the collection of Hiva's poetry, "Secrets of the Snow" published by Hard Ball Press, NYC, US, 2016