Sholeh Wolpe

Sholeh Wolpé
Native name	شعله ولپی
Born	Iran
Occupation	poet, literary translator, and writer
Language	English, Persian, Spanish
Nationality	Iranian-American
Alma mater	George Washington University, Northwestern University, Johns Hopkins University
Notable works	The Conference of the Birds, The Scar Saloon, Rooftops of Tehran, Sin:Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad, The Forbidden: Poems From Iran and Its Exiles, Breaking the Jaws of Silence, Walt Whitman's Song of Myself: Persian Edition, Keeping Time With Blue Hyacinths,
Notable awards	2014 PEN/Heim Translation Fund award, 2014 Hedgebrook Residency, 2013 Midwest Book Award, 2010 Lois Roth Persian Translation Award,Le Château de Lavigny residency
Website
www.sholehwolpe.com

Sholeh Wolpé (Persian: شعله ولپی‎‎)(born 6 March 1962) is an award-winning Iranian-American poet and literary translator.^[1] She was born in Iran, and has lived in Trinidad, England and United States. She is the author of four collections of poetry, three books of translations, a play, and is the editor of three anthologies.

Biography

Sholeh Wolpé was born in Tehran, Iran and spent most of her teen years in Trinidad and the UK before settling in the United States. The Poetry Foundation has written that “Wolpé’s concise, unflinching, and often wry free verse explores violence, culture, and gender. So many of Wolpé’s poems deal with the violent situation in the Middle East, yet she is ready to both bravely and playfully refuse to let death be too proud.”^[2]

In an article for Poemeleon-- A Journal of Poetry Wolpe writes: "I belong nowhere. Every language I speak, I speak with an accent...Being a foreigner everywhere, not belonging anywhere, can be disquieting but once you’re over that, it is liberating. Suddenly you find yourself part of something greater, something indefinable and exhilaratingly new. You are granted access to places the existence of which is not on most people’s radars." ^[3] Wolpe's recent writings are often about memories of exile and loss. "Her concise, yet emotive lines pull readers into vignettes and anecdotes that expand diaspora and immigrant narratives." ^[4]

A great deal of Wolpe's work also is concerned about the status of women in the world. "It is my belief" Wolpe said in an interview,"that women must learn to repudiate the unjust standards they are taught by the societies they live in, and empower themselves with a sense of self - demanding justice and equality of rights - and envision for themselves and their daughters a better life than the one imposed on them by male-dominated societies... I don’t think there’s much of a question that we still live in a world dominated and too often defined by men, however, I believe that women need to break out of this competitive mode, and, in particular, be supportive of one another. If we are to truly achieve equality and change the unjust standards imposed on us, women must unite and achieve it collectively."

About her process of writing, Wolpe says, "When I write, I connect to a bottomless well within myself-- so deep that at some point I transcend myself. By that, I mean we are ultimately connected to one another and to an invisible world, accessible through a tireless, incessant searching that begins by going inward and eventually leads to what is no longer ourselves, but a collective self. Therefore, in my opinion, our “natural state” is more complex than we realize. It hides nothing. It is accessible. But, at the same time, it needs to be reached for, and that reaching is a journey that can take one a life time." ^[5]

Wolpe's literary translations have garnered several prestigious awards. In "Note to the Reader" in her anthology The Forbidden, Wolpe writes, "As a poet I understand the sting of seeing one's poem mutilated in another language. As a literary translator I understand that a poetic translation is recreation, a re-rendering of what cannot be literally duplicated." ^[6] In the Editor's Note in Breaking The Jaws of Silence she emphasizes the importance of poetry and translation. She write: "From Damascus to Beijing to Tehran in every revolution or uprising, poets are among the first to be jailed. But the voice of the poet cannot be arrested." ^[7]

Wolpe lives in Los Angeles.

Literary career

About Sholeh Wolpe World Literature Today writes, "Wolpé has established her own work as a fearless poet in three collections... Both her aversion to oppression and her ability to juxtapose the dark and wondrous are reflected" in her writings and anthologies such as Breaking The Jaws of Silence.^[8] According to Wolpe, "the currency of the poet is truth. And truth is highly subjective. It manifests itself in different forms and textures. The function of the poet, in my opinion, is offering one or more perspectives to view the same “truth”."^[9]

A recipient of 2014 PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant, 2014 Hedgebrook Residency, the 2013 Midwest Book Award and 2010 Lois Roth Persian Translation prize, Wolpé is the author of four collections of poetry and three books of translations, and is the editor of three anthologies.

Her play SHAME was a 2016 Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwright conference semifinalist, and she was one of ten Centenary Stage Women Playwrights Series finalists in 2016.

Wolpé’s first collection, The Scar Saloon, was lauded by Billy Collins as “poems that cast a light on some of what we all hold in common.”^[10] Poet and novelist Chris Abani called the poems “political, satirical, and unflinching in the face of war, tyranny and loss . . . they transmute experience into the magic of the imagined.”^[11]

The poems in Wolpé’s second collection, Rooftops of Tehran, were called by poet Nathalie Handal “as vibrant as they are brave,” and Richard Katrovas wrote that its publication was a “truly rare event: an important book of poetry.”^[12]

In response to Wolpé’s most recent collection of poems, Keeping Time With Blue Hyacinths (2013), Shelf Awareness Magazine wrote that “a gifted Iranian-American poet beautifully explores love and the loss of love, beauty and war and the ghosts of the past.”^[13]

Wolpé’s translations of the iconic Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad’s selected work, Sin, was awarded the prestigious Lois Roth Persian Translation Award in 2010. The judges wrote that they “found themselves experiencing Forugh’s Persian poems with new eyes.”^[14] Alicia Ostriker praised the translations as “hypnotic in their beauty and force.” Willis Barnstone found them “extravagantly majestic,” and of such order that “they resurrect Forugh.”^[15]

Sholeh Wolpé and Mohsen Emadi’s translations of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself (آواز خويشتن) were commissioned by the University of Iowa’s International Program. They are currently on University of Iowa’s Whitman website and will soon be available in print in Iran.^[16]

Robert Olen Butler lauded Wolpé's anthology, Breaking the Jaws of Silence as “a deeply humane and aesthetically exhilarating collection.”^[17] Wolpé's 2012 anthology,The Forbidden: Poems from Iran and Its Exiles, a recipient of the 2013 Midwest Book Award, includes many of Wolpé’s own translations, and was called by Sam Hamil a “most welcome gift” that “embraces and illuminates our deepest human bonds and hopes.” Joy Harjo wrote, “What demon can withstand against these beautiful and truthful singers? What heart will not open when they hear these poems?”^[18]

Wolpé’s Iran Edition of the Atlanta Review became that journal’s best-selling issue.^[19] Wolpé is also a regional editor of Tablet and Pen: Literary Landscapes from The Modern Middle East (edited by Reza Aslan),^[20] and a contributing editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books.http://lareviewofbooks.org/contributor/sholeh-wolpe#

Wolpé’s modern translation of The Conference of the Birds by the 12th Century Iranian Sufi mystic poet Attar was lauded by PEN lauded as an “artful and exquisite modern translation.”^[21] About the book, W.W. Norton & Co writes: "Wolpé re-creates the intense beauty of the original Persian in contemporary English verse and poetic prose, fully capturing for the first time the beauty and timeless wisdom of Attar’s masterpiece for modern readers."

Wolpe's poems and translations have been set to music by composer Shawn Crouch, composer, American jazz band San Gabriel 7,^[22] Australian composer Brook Rees ^[23] and Iranian vocalist and musicians Mamak Khadem, Sahba Motallebi, and Sussan Deyhim.^{[24][25][26][27]}

Education

George Washington University -- B.A. in Radio/TV/Film

Northwestern University -- M.A. in Radio/TV/Film

Johns Hopkins University -- MHS in Public Health

Books

• The Scar Saloon (Red Hen Press 2004)^[28]
• Rooftops of Tehran (Red Hen Press 2007)^[29]
• Sin: Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad (University of Arkansas 2007)^[30]
• Keeping Time with Blue Hyacinths (University of Arkansas Press, 2013)^[31]

Anthologies

• Atlanta Review — Iran Issue 2010 Edited by Sholeh Wolpe^[32]
• Tablet & Pen — Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East Edited by Reza Aslan; Sholeh Wolpe, regional editor, (W.W. Norton 2010)^[33]
• The Forbidden: Poems From Iran And Its Exiles, edited by Sholeh Wolpé, Michigan State University press, 2012^[34]
• Breaking the Jaws of Silence--Sixty American Poets Speak to the World edited by Sholeh Wolpé,University of Arkansas Press, 2013^[35]

Audio

The Scar Saloon CD (Refuge Studios, 2005)^[36]

Other Publications

Wolpe's work can be found in the following anthologies:

• Flash Fiction Funny: 82 Very Short Humorous Stories (Blue Light Press, 2013)^[37]
• Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here: Poets and Writers Respond to the March 5th, 2007, Bombing of Baghdad's "Street of the Booksellers" (PM Press, 2012)^[38]
• How To Free a Naked Man from a Rock: An Anthology (Red Hen Press, 2011)^[39]
• Sudden Flash Youth: 65 Short Short Stories (Persea Books, April 2011)^[40]
• Tremors: New Fiction by Iranian American Writers (University of Arkansas Press, 2013)^[41]
• Poetry of Provocation and Witness from Split This Rock (wordpress, 2012)^[42]
• The Forbidden: Poems from Iran and its exiles (Michigan State University, 2012)^[43]
• Tablet & Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East (W W Norton 2010)^[44]
• Rumpus Original Poetry Anthology (The Rumpus, 2012)^[45]
• Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia & Beyond (Norton, 2008)^[46]
• Powwow: American Short Fiction from Then to Now (Da Capo Press, an imprint of the Perseus Books Group Inc., 2009)^[47]
• The Poetry of Iranian Woman, A contemporary anthology (Reelcontent), 2009)^[48]
• Been There, Read That: The Armchair Traveler's Companion (Victoria University Press, 2008)^[49]
• In Our Own Words—A Generation Defining Itself (MW Enterprises, New York 2007)^[50]
• Evensong: Contemporary Poems of Spirituality (Bottom Dog Press, 2006)^[51]
• Yellow as Turmeric, Fragrant as Cloves, — An anthology of Asian American Female Poets (Deep Bowl Press, Feb. 2008)^[52]
• Inlandia: A Literary Journey Through California's Inland Empire (Heyday Books, 2006)^[53]
• Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora (University of Arkansas Press, 2006)^[54]
• The Other Side of Sorrow (Poetry Society of New Hampshire 2006)^[55]
• Strange Times, My Dear: The PEN Anthology of Contemporary Iranian Literature (Arcade Publishing, April 2005)^[56]
• So Luminous the Wildflowers, An Anthology of California Poets (Tebot Bach, 2003)^[57]

References

External links

• http://msupress.msu.edu/bookTemplate.php?bookID=4303
• http://www.amazon.com/The-Forbidden-Poems-Iran-Exiles/dp/1611860342
• http://www.iranian.com/main/2012/apr/forbidden
• http://wordswithwriters.com/2011/10/31/sholeh-wolpe/
• http://www.poetsagainstthewar.org/archive/201006
• http://www.pw.org/content/sholeh_wolpe_1
• http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=2011010290413
• http://www.moca.org/nightvision/index.php/category/july-21/
• http://www.csuchico.edu/pa/2006/12/
• http://www.inner-cityarts.org/documents/clippings/CaliforniaArtsCouncil-ArtsInsider.pdf
• http://www.sierranevada.edu/blog/sholeh-wolpe-reknowned-iranian-poet-and-editor-to-speak-at-snc/
• http://www.rhapsodomancy.org/rhapsodomancy/2006/10/index.html
• http://www.tupelopress.org/poetryproj_200706.php