Borderlessness
Embodied Narratives of Migration
This interview explores Bindless Epic through the lens of feminist poetics, exile, and postmodern form. The poet reflects on non-linear narratives, multilingual voice, and the philosophy of écriture féminine, drawing from thinkers like Cixous, Kristeva, and Derrida. Set in a decaying city where women are erased, the poems resist fixed meaning through embodied language, grotesque imagery, and polyphonic structure. “Borderlessness” emerges as both a condition of exile and a poetic strategy—where voice, memory, and desire defy containment.
This conversation was first published in the cultural-literary monthly magazine Sokhan, Year 10 / Issue 100 / February 2025.
Review of Bindless Epic / Tehran. Sibe Sorkh Publishing. First Edition, 2018
This collection revolves around the duality of staying or leaving a city where everything is in decline. In this city, women have been erased, and people remain indifferent to destruction and corruption:
"A city inside a chamber / Busy washing / In filth / In the pit."
To escape reality, individuals seek refuge in sexual pleasures and drugs, while some turn to religion—out of fear or to ease their suffering:
"Hands raised in prayer to the white-winged angel / Who had sat above the bed for years / Watching us through the haze of hashish smoke / Keeping vigil."
All of this reflects a bitter truth—that in the end, this life leads to ruin and devastation. In this section, despair reaches its peak, and eventually, a group decides to leave their homeland. But the poem repeatedly warns that migration will lead to displacement:
"One border behind / A hundred borders ahead."
"A generation lost in illusions / Who, dreaming of the sea / Fled the warm marble baths / Into the shadows."
The second section (31 poems) narrates the stories of those who have left their homeland, tracing their difficult and complex journey until they reach the final point of the book—where they inevitably arrive at a cosmopolitan perspective.
This section follows an emotional and philosophical trajectory, beginning with the decision to leave and the confrontation with a new world, leading to inner collapse and a redefinition of worldview.
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The first poem expresses disillusionment with the indifference toward the homeland’s condition.
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The second poem reflects deep regret for what could have been but never was.
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The third poem depicts hopelessness in the face of change.
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Poems four through six convey a profound anger toward the world and the circumstances imposed upon the homeland.
This journey of upheaval continues, ultimately leading to a broader, global outlook—one born from accepting the new reality of life and adapting to it.
This poem breaks away from conventional narrative structures, adopting a nonlinear form that requires a modern execution. Can you elaborate on this?
This epic is an attempt to embody and represent the theory of Écriture Féminine, or "feminine writing"—a theory that positions female authorship not simply as sentimental poetry but as a subversive and liberating approach to form and language.
This concept, introduced by thinkers such as Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray, is based on fluidity, multiplicity, and the reformation of established structures.
Nonlinear storytelling is just one aspect of Écriture Féminine that manifests within this work. By rejecting traditional temporal and logical structures, this type of narrative attempts to reflect events in a way that aligns with mental, emotional, and existential complexities. In this approach, linear chronology is replaced by an intertwined structure, where past, present, and future merge to mirror fluid memory and consciousness.
By abandoning cause-and-effect logic, this style moves away from external events, instead focusing on deeper layers of emotions and experiences. Nonlinear narratives, through these qualities, become a form of resistance against dominant masculine language, integrating body and language to create a more immersive portrayal of female existence.
However, Écriture Féminine is not limited to nonlinear structure—it also encompasses metaphorical language, polyphony, bodily focus, and the disruption of logical progression.
For instance, the flexibility and dynamism of language are central to this style. In certain sections, the playfulness in word choice and unexpected juxtapositions allows the poem to break away from conventional linguistic constraints:
"Glasswood / lounging elegantly / behind the kneading hands of warm domes / whispering damp rust / drenched in its own pleasure / dripping into a pause / indifferent to everything."
These unusual combinations and musical harmony between words aim to create a fluid, unrestricted structure that conveys meaning freely and expansively.
Another key feature of Écriture Féminine is the return to a pre-symbolic language—an approach that deeply intertwines sensation and the body, connecting non-verbal expression with embodied experiences.
For instance, in this passage:
"When the warmest home / lacked even the faintest breath of a woman! / Even in the shadows of teak / beneath the earth filled with urns / inside the empty urns / emptied of moisture / emptied of salt / not even for the sake of a bruised dance."
The tactile and material imagery constructs a tangible spatial experience, pulling language from abstraction into the realm of the sensory and the bodily.
Here, my intent is not to analyze every aspect of Écriture Féminine within my poetry. However, examining this epic through this lens illuminates its structural, linguistic, visual, musical, and intertextual dimensions.
The central point is that this poem tells the story of a city where women have been completely erased from public space, and this erasure has led to the city's decay and desolation.
However, the irony lies in the fact that despite this apparent absence, feminine presence permeates the poem—in its rhythm, imagery, and form.
This work, in essence, is my battleground against the erasure of women, a space where through the lens of Écriture Féminine, I have embedded the most profound feminine presence within the deepest layers of my writing—so that even in a city without women, "woman" exists in every line.
This poem is polyphonic, transitioning from monologue to intranarrative dialogues—a modern and significant approach. Could you elaborate on this perspective?
Now that the philosophy behind this collection has been explained, discussing polyphony in Bindless Epic becomes easier.
Polyphony, theoretically aligns deeply with the principles of Écriture Féminine, as this style seeks multiplicity, diversity, and the dismantling of single-voiced, authoritarian narratives. Within this framework, language transcends a singular, hierarchical voice, embracing varied perspectives, tones, and dialogues, ultimately creating a richer and more dynamic space for meaning.
In my poetry, this concept takes shape through the transition from monologue to intranarrative dialogues. This shift symbolizes the decentralization of authority within the text, embodying a feminist effort to challenge patriarchal structures that impose fixed, one-dimensional meanings.
The presence of diverse voices, both explicit and implicit, weaves a network of perspectives, inviting the reader to engage with the text on multiple levels.
However, my adoption of this technique was undoubtedly a process, beginning with experimentation and engagement with Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism.
This approach allowed me to express both personal and collective experiences simultaneously, breaking away from traditional storytelling boundaries.
Of course, polyphony does not simply mean linguistic diversity—it also encompasses tonal, emotional, and thematic shifts.
We observe a profound and internalized nihilism within this poem, where nothing in everyday life or the fluid world of the mind is ever complete, and relativity prevails. How do you interpret this?
We live in an era where meaning is no longer fixed or absolute—it is fluid, relative, and dependent on experiences and their contexts. Grand narratives and overarching discourses have lost their credibility, and identities have fragmented into scattered pieces, resembling a puzzle.
Our lives take shape within an endless stream of fragmented information and narratives—from news, social media, and digital content. Naturally, I am a product of the postmodern age in which I live, where nihilism and uncertainty have become everyday realities.
However, for me, this sense of nihilism and semantic fluidity is also deeply tied to migration and my lived experiences.
As a poet whose roots are in Iran, migration has shattered everything I once knew about the world and my identity—like a bubble bursting.
What I now know of Iran is no longer direct or immediate; instead, it consists of fragmented narratives—conversations with friends, news from media, and memories that remain vivid or fade in my mind. These experiences have unconsciously shaped a nonlinear and fragmented storytelling structure in my poetry, where meaning is never final, and no fixed truth exists.
Lacan argued that human identity is always confronted with a sense of absence, because what we perceive as reality is always filtered through language and the Other.
Instead of directly representing reality, language creates a distance—a gap between us and the world.
Migration has deepened this gap for me. What I remember of Iran now reaches me through language and others' narratives, and this distance makes both my life and my works feel scattered and fragmented—as if every word and every line is an attempt to bridge this gap, even though it can never be fully closed.
This personal experience is perhaps the reason for my interest in Derrida’s theories.
He argues that meaning in language is always deferred, never fully complete—and this is precisely what I have experienced in my life, especially after migration.
My world has been dispersed into fragments that never form a single, unified whole.
Derrida taught me that instead of seeking certainty, I should embrace meaning within fluidity and the escape from fixed poles.
My poems unconsciously reflect this philosophy—depicting a world where certainty does not exist, and where meaning flows in the endless play of signs.
The roles of propositions in this work are narrative-like, as if we have bid farewell to singular readings of the world’s signs. This fragmented yet purposeful storytelling advances through a sequence of interconnected statements with a distinct worldview. Where does this mode of expression originate?
I believe narrative is our primary tool for making sense of fragmented experiences.
According to Walter Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm Theory, humans create meaning and coherence in their lives through storytelling. Narrative interlinks individual components logically (narrative coherence) while aligning with our values and beliefs (narrative fidelity), transforming scattered experiences into a clearer and more unified understanding.
To me, narrative goes beyond a simple meaning-making device. It often has a central axis or overarching structure, which reflects the prevailing perception of the world, lending cohesion and significance to all other elements.
Yet, alongside this grand narrative, smaller, individual stories emerge, each offering a different perspective on the same emotion or theme.
These sub-narratives are essential to me, because instead of merely reinforcing the larger narrative, they introduce fresh dimensions to the work.
Of course, these smaller stories remain in continuous dialogue with one another and the entirety of the poem, creating a layered conversation that adds depth.
To me, this process mirrors life itself—a collection of scattered experiences, each of which fits within a broader whole, giving it meaning.
This is precisely the fragmentation of linear storytelling, the multiplicity of voices, and the fluidity of meaning that underpin Écriture Féminine, or feminine writing.
The outcome of this approach is a text that distances itself from absolute cohesion and certainty, instead becoming a space that reflects the complexity and multilayered nature of human experience.
This method invites the audience to participate, allowing them to explore different meanings and symbols within the text.
As a result, the work transforms into a living, fluid space, where boundaries between voices and meanings dissolve, offering not a single definitive truth but the possibility of multiple simultaneous truths and experiences.
This poem creates a nostalgic and apocalyptic atmosphere, depicting a tension between the loss of the past and anxiety about the future. How does this setting enhance the intertextual depth of the work and its connection to historical and cultural narratives?
I have always been fascinated by apocalyptic and dystopian literature. What sets these narratives apart for me is their ability to create worlds that feel both familiar and unsettling, inviting deep reflection on our present condition and social values. This inclination has naturally seeped into my poetry.
Beyond this, however, the apocalyptic world depicted particularly in the first section of this collection is a direct reflection of how I engage with Iran—an engagement often filtered through negative news, portraying a dark and one-dimensional image of the country.
These narratives, in the absence of small, everyday joyful experiences that could provide balance, contribute to the construction of a bleak and abstract reality. Although this type of engagement with news is not beneficial for mental health, it has nonetheless shaped a dystopian world that, at the very least, intrigues me as a poet.
Nostalgia in this poem is also an inseparable part of my experience—a longing for an Iran that exists only in my mind, yet I know never truly existed in reality.
This mental construct, exaggerated and detached from reality, creates an imagined world—a place I can return to in thought, even if it remains only a conceptual structure.
From an intertextual perspective, this atmosphere plays a crucial role in linking the text to dominant historical, cultural, and socio-political discourses in contemporary Iran.
Nostalgia for a mythical "golden era"—whether referring to the time of Cyrus the Great, the early Islamic period, the monarchy, or the early years of the revolution—is deeply embedded in our collective imagination.
This idealized past is often used as a reference point to critique the present, fueling a deep longing for an "authentic" and lost identity, even if this past never truly existed.
On the other hand, the apocalyptic atmosphere reflects collective anxieties about an uncertain future.
This anxiety—rooted in political, social, and economic crises—has evolved into a collective narrative of fear and instability, becoming an integral part of contemporary Iranian cultural discourse.
By applying Julia Kristeva’s theory of intertextuality, one could argue that this poem is deeply engaged with and inspired by these historical and cultural narratives.
In the second section of Bindless Epic, we observe the interplay of linguistic juxtaposition and substitution, reflecting a transition beyond the modernist conception of language. The poet develops these two linguistic principles through multiple foundations, which will be explored in this discussion.
The grotesque elements in this collection—particularly in poems (2, 5, 9, 15, etc.)—represent a significant approach to the substitution of meanings. Could you elaborate on this perspective to identify its performative, dramatic, and satirical aspects?
I personally view this type of poetry through a Bakhtinian lens.
In Rabelais and His World, Bakhtin explains how carnivalism challenges established power and social norms.
Bakhtin derived the concept of carnivalism from medieval carnival festivals, where roles were reversed, norms were suspended, and humor and free expression disrupted social order.
Carnivalism creates a space in which meaning is never fixed but is continuously recreated.
This process allows individuals to transcend conventional frameworks and discover new meanings.
For me, as someone naturally inclined to experiment with language and writing, Bakhtin’s perspective is particularly compelling.
Of course, I also feel the direct influence of some of my favorite writers in my work—authors like Gogol, Kafka, and Márquez, whose dark humor and grotesque aesthetics delve into human distress and disorientation in the modern world, critiquing societal structures.
The perspective in this section is not merely playful; rather, it intelligently evolves from both mental and social currents. Could you elaborate on this philosophical and social outlook?
I write poetry to understand my emotions and mental struggles.
Julia Kristeva, in her book Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, explains that language operates through two systems—the semiotic and the symbolic.
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The semiotic system is connected to emotions and rhythm.
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The symbolic system is linked to meaning and social structures.
This interaction transforms language into a fluid and dynamic tool for expressing and processing emotions.
To me, the creative process is neither arbitrary nor premeditated—it is a reflection of the search for meaning in the world, a search that, if the writer is fortunate, may resonate with others as well.
Love in this collection follows multiple paths—at times existing within society and interpersonal connections, at times manifesting in an erotic yet mystical perspective, and at times taking on a Platonic form, where the significance of love and devotion is marked by the interplay of imagination. Could you expand on this?
I compiled this collection alongside my other work, A Head Full of Sounds.
In this collection, I only selected poems that reflect my socio-political philosophy.
A Head Full of Sounds explores my embodied journey in discovering all dimensions of womanhood—from love and emotional experiences to eroticism and motherhood.
Therefore, this collection does not contain any romantic or erotic references.
If love appears in these poems, it is a love for a homeland I have constructed in my mind, or a love for a world with which I have ultimately made peace.
This love is not personal or romantic, but philosophical and social—a reflection of my need to find meaning in life.
The narratives in this section play a foundational role in creating avant-garde and unfiltered expression, revealing mental landscapes and leading to a form of narrative deconstruction. Could you discuss the clear manifestations of this approach, both personally and socially?
I have always been fascinated by exploring the capacities of language as a tool for expression, and I see studying linguistic theories and movements as a way to better understand these possibilities.
This poetry collection has evolved in alignment with this passion and effort, incorporating works from different periods of my literary journey—from Reza Baraheni’s concept of "Zabanit", which profoundly influenced Toronto’s literary scene and my own perspective, to movements like Free Verse Poetry, Performance Poetry, Volume Poetry, and Post-Volume Poetry—each of which challenges conventional linguistic boundaries, turning them into a space for multilayered meaning and an escape from clichés.
Additionally, my exposure to Western linguistic movements has also shaped my style.
From linguistic disruption and wordplay in postmodern works and even rap, to contemporary efforts in literature and art to redefine the relationship between form and content—these diverse perspectives on language, whether within poetry or linguistic theory, have opened new avenues for me to transcend conventional boundaries and find new ways to express internal and social complexities.