Contemporary Azerbaijani Poetry Ramiz Rovshan

Contemporary Azerbaijani Poetry: Ramiz Rovshan

Ramiz Rovshan (full name Ramiz Mammadali oghlu Aliyev) is a well-known Azerbaijani poet, a writer, a script-writer and a translator, who was born on December 15, 1946 in Amirjan, now a suburb of Baku. He is best known by his pen name Ramiz Rovshan, which means “light”.  He graduated from the Philology Faculty of Azerbaijan State University (1969). He enrolled in a two-year filmmaking course in Moscow in 1978. He is the author of several books of poetry such as One Rainy Song (1970), Pain (1978), Stone (1979), The Sky Can’t Hold a Stone (1987) and Butterfly Wings (1999), Stories of Amirjan (2001), Breath (2006) and others.  Several films have been based upon his scripts: The Grandfather of my Grandfather's Grandfather (1981), The Reapers from City (1985), The Pain of milk-tooth (1988), Strange Time (1996) which was named "Best Movie" at the First International Madrid Film Festival in 1997, "The Melody of Place" (2001), and more. He is the member of the Azerbaijan Writers" Union.
Ramiz Rovshan’s poems and stories have been translated into many of the languages of the former Soviet Republics and published in the US, Germany, UK, France, Poland, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Iran.  He is currently the Editor of Azerbaijan film Studio. He is a member of the Republican Council of Media too. He is also the chairman of the Committee for the "Struggle Against Election Fraud and Repression.”



We Were In A Sweet Sleep

We were in a sweet sleep,
A hard-hearted  man woke us.
and threw us into this world
from the mothers" arms.

We fell down the roads,
seeking for our fate.
And it turned us out
and made a fool of us.

We couldn"t know the road,
We couldn"t know what was death.
If we knew
we wouldn"t come to world-
the mothers deceived us.


Free Woman’s Monument

No! Your soul was not like a stone,
and what a miserable life they put you in!
At first, they took off your veil
then your clothes, woman!
They peeled you like an onion.

The despots were so hard-hearted
they didn’t even shed a few tears.

Tell me,
who couldn’t peel you among those robbers?
Your face was so lovely 
they peeled it and peeled in a strict way!
They peeled your unsettled home
and your unborn child.
What a miserable life to be left in, I say!

Later your possessions were striped away,
after all your patience!
Your tears plundered your eyes
and your eyes remained naked!
And then they kissed your eyes again,
and they sang a song to you!

It was found out
that all conflicts and revolutions,
all wars and bloodshed happened because of you!
Why did you need revolution?
You are still a revolution, dear!
You are an unread book from cover to cover.
One began to read your eyes,
one began to read your feet.
But no one could read you till the end!
And all our people attached to you half way!
Now,
you look downwards, why?
Or you think you gave birth to us?
If your children are not free,
how have you become a free woman?

No! Your freedom is incomplete, in fact,
you are imperfect! We are also imperfect!
We are all incomplete men!
Bring us to the world again for a moment,
please, Free Woman’s Monument!

But don’t give birth to dwarves or pygmies.
Give birth to giants - huge and strong men,
My Stone Mother!
Don’t bring incomplete people to life.
After that,
you will be liberated
and will get your sovereignty!




A Woman In Black Dress

Men are different in life, darling:
some are cowards, some are brave;
But each one lives with the hope, I guess,
that after his death
there would be a nice woman in a black dress
crying on his grave.

Who will close your eyes when you die?
Maybe your brother? Maybe a stranger?
Maybe she, who you hurt for years
will weep for you much more than others?

As soon as tears wash your tombstone,
you will stir in your grave and say, Oh my God,
why does the woman who I hurt for years
shed so many tears?

I never fondled her.
I never caressed her hair.
And I never dried her bitter tears.
Now each of her grey hairs
is like a needle stuck in my eyes.
I have brought her only trouble for years.
Why is she weeping for me with such sorrow?

Punch my grave stone!
Do not kiss or caress it, woman!
It is better to curse my grave,
than to cry on it, hey, black dressed woman!

Go! Leave me
woman in a black dress!
Hush and stop your crying and mourning.
My grave is one of the thousands.
Don’t clasp my gravestone in your arms.
No one is crying for me now, no one is weeping,
You also must stop.
My grave-stone is dripping...
Translated by Kamran Nazirli