The Dialectics of Shared Voice
An Interview on Collective Poetry and Identity
In this interview, we sit down with Bahar Almasi, Iranian poet, interdisciplinary artist, and co-author of Horoof-e Sorbi, to discuss the possibilities and challenges of poetic collaboration. Reflecting on her shared authorship with Reza Roozbehani, Almasi unpacks the layered dynamics of collective voice, philosophical influence, and gendered expression. This conversation, situated at the crossroads of theory and creative praxis, opens a space for rethinking authorship—not as a solitary act, but as a dialogical, transformative encounter.
This conversation was first published in the cultural-literary monthly magazine Sokhan, Year 10 / Issue 100 / February 2025.
Review of Letters of Lead (A Joint Poetry Collection by Bahar Almasi and Reza Rouzbahani) / Tehran. Dastan Publishing. First Edition, 2016
This collection consists of four sections, each with its own unique expressive qualities that correspond to the meaningful states within the book.
The first section, "Co-Composition," discusses the importance of co-composition in the shared intellectual discourse and linguistic harmony, referencing its historical significance in collective individualism and the semiotics of innovation. The authors, both of whom are poets contributing to this volume, explore the significance of this approach, emphasizing the value of shared language and collaborative expression in a scholarly and refined manner. This perspective introduces a novel and insightful interpretation of writing as a lived experience.
The second section consists of poems by Banu Almasi, titled "The Shadow of a Derridean Cypress," while the third section, "Letters of Lead," includes co-composed verses by Banu Almasi and Bozorgmehr Rouzbahani. The fourth section, titled "The Lost Image of Melancholy," features poems by Bozorgmehr Rouzbahani.
This collection has two notable distinctions:
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It features a significant academic-research preface, providing a scholarly foundation for the work.
-
Alongside the co-composed poems, both poets have independently included selected works from their own poetic worlds,
Review of Letters of Lead (A Joint Poetry Collection by Bahar Almasi and Reza Rouzbahani) / Tehran. Dastan Publishing. First Edition, 2016
This collection consists of four sections, each with its own unique expressive qualities that correspond to the meaningful states within the book.
The first section, "Co-Composition," discusses the importance of co-composition in the shared intellectual discourse and linguistic harmony, referencing its historical significance in collective individualism and the semiotics of innovation. The authors, both of whom are poets contributing to this volume, explore the significance of this approach, emphasizing the value of shared language and collaborative expression in a scholarly and refined manner. This perspective introduces a novel and insightful interpretation of writing as a lived experience.
The second section consists of poems by Banu Almasi, titled "The Shadow of a Derridean Cypress," while the third section, "Letters of Lead," includes co-composed verses by Banu Almasi and Bozorgmehr Rouzbahani. The fourth section, titled "The Lost Image of Melancholy," features poems by Bozorgmehr Rouzbahani.
This collection has two notable distinctions:
-
It features a significant academic-research preface, providing a scholarly foundation for the work.
-
Alongside the co-composed poems, both poets have independently included selected works from their own poetic worlds,
What Are Your Thoughts on Co-Composition and Its Current Theoretical Frameworks?
In my view, co-composition is an opportunity to transcend individual boundaries and explore collective creative potential. It is an exchange based on dialogue, allowing for the interplay of ideas, expressions, and perspectives. This process moves beyond fixed notions of individual ownership in poetry and enters a space where creation and artistic production become collective experiences—an experience in which voices, languages, and viewpoints merge, redefine, and recreate themselves within a dialectical framework, producing a shared work beyond the limits of individual capacity.
In this process, co-composers engage not only with others but also in a renewed dialogue with themselves—each word or idea becomes a bridge to another world, enabling the redefinition of restrictive personal boundaries within collective creation.
How Did Letters of Lead Achieve an Innovative Approach to Collaborative Poetry, and What Theoretical and Practical Foundations Support This Method?
In 2010, as part of a research project led by Fouad Hamidi, an Iranian-Canadian scholar specializing in collaborative design and emerging systems, I had the experience of co-composing poetry with 18 Persian and English-speaking poets based in Canada. This project, titled Collaborative Poetry on the Facebook Social Network, was designed and presented at the ACM International Conference, examining the capacity for collective poetry creation in digital spaces, particularly Facebook. In this initiative, poets were invited to jointly write lines of poetry, complete existing verses, or edit others’ compositions. The goal was to create a “collective poet”—an entity that reflected the voices, perspectives, and styles of multiple contributors.
The poetry emerging from this project was a blend of diverse voices, reflecting the linguistic and cultural diversity of the participants in a fragmented and unharmonized structure. However, this process lacked the organic qualities of actual poetic composition, resembling more of a juxtaposition of voices placed together without linguistic, rhythmic, or semantic cohesion.
This experience inspired me to develop a more dialectical approach to collaborative poetry—an idea that ultimately led to the creation of Letters of Lead. During this collaboration, the concept of mutual inspiration became central, akin to Hegelian dialectics, which progresses from thesis and antithesis toward synthesis. In this project, collaborative poetry mirrored Hegel’s dialectical process—it remained dynamic and alive. Initially, each of us wrote poems representing distinct perspectives (thesis and antithesis). Then, through continuous exchanges, as detailed in the book’s introduction, these poems transformed and merged into a unified whole. This cyclical movement precisely aligns with Hegel’s notion of “sublation”, where apparent contradictions are not merely resolved but elevated to a higher state of harmony and meaning. The result was poetry that was not merely a fusion of our individual perspectives but a manifestation of something entirely new and unprecedented.
However, Reza Rouzbahani approached the project with a completely different mindset and an innovative perspective. His approach emphasized structural precision and engineering logic, producing a cohesive poetic system that, despite its linguistic and thematic diversity, transcended a mere collection of separate pieces. Reza further broke traditional poetic forms, creating space for greater innovation and creativity. One of his key ideas was the globalization of poetry—by removing dates and titles from the poems, he produced a work free from temporal, spatial, and cultural constraints. This conceptual elevation allowed us to perceive the poetry not as isolated individual productions but as part of a more expansive global whole.
Thus, the fusion of my approach with Reza’s is evident not only in the collaborative sections of the book but throughout the entire project. Ultimately, the collection emerged as one that is simultaneously individual and collective, local and global, detailed yet universal.
How Should the Search for Meaning Through Collaborative Thought Be Led for Better Group Work in Alliances?
As previously mentioned, I initially structured my work within the framework of Hegelian dialectics, which is inherently linear and hierarchical. This approach progresses structurally from thesis to antithesis and then synthesis, resolving contradictions to ultimately reach a higher unity. However, during that period, my perspective was heavily influenced by Derrida’s deconstruction, a framework that challenges stable meanings and hierarchical binaries. Deconstruction, with its emphasis on instability and the continual deferral of meaning, reveals that structural permanence is essentially impossible, and each meaning emerges within a shifting, dynamic context.
Because of this shift, something unexpected happened: I arrived at a dialogical perspective inspired by Bakhtin, which radically transformed my creative process. Bakhtinian theory emphasizes polyphony, where multiple voices coexist dynamically without being reduced to a singular unity.
This experience fundamentally reshaped my approach to collaborative composition, evolving into an intertextual methodology. Intertextuality recognizes the interaction and mutual influence among texts, voices, and distinct contexts, incorporating these relationships into the creative process. This approach moves beyond isolated narratives or singular meanings, constructing a network of interconnected references and dialogues.
Such a method fosters a space for collaborative thinking and linguistic harmony, one that not only embraces diversity but thrives on interactions between differences, creating an ever-evolving and dynamic process.
How does linguistic deviation in the poem (The Sun Also Rises, pp. 10–15), along with its semiotic approach to linguistic situations, create a fresh perspective in narrative structure that reflects the socio-historical vision of contemporary humanity? Discuss the significance of this approach in its execution.
My starting point in this collection was applying the Hegelian dialectic to various texts—an approach that represents contradictions in order to ultimately achieve unity. However, during the creative process, a diversity of texts and references—ranging from poets such as Forough Farrokhzad, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, and Nima to historical and mythological narratives like Cassandra from Greek mythology and Timur Lang—gradually shaped poems that evolved toward Bakhtinian polyphony and an intertextual structure.
The title of the first poem in this collection is derived from Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises. In this work, Hemingway explores themes of identity instability, alienation, and the search for meaning in a postwar world, and these themes in my poem are recreated and merged with contemporary lived experiences. The phrase “The Sun Also Rises” recurs throughout the poem, but through shifts in meaning, it creates a bridge between global themes and contemporary individual and cultural issues.
This reinterpretation of concepts and references from other works is structured within a Bakhtinian dialogical framework. Dialogism, as an approach that emphasizes dynamic interaction and the coexistence of multiple voices, forms the foundation of this poem. Thus, rather than directly reproducing the style or content of Forough, Plath, or Dickinson, their poetic worldview is absorbed and reimagined in a fresh form. As a result, various voices interact, generating new meaning without being reduced to a singular, unified conclusion.
In direct response to your question regarding linguistic deviation and the semiotics of linguistic situations, this deviation, through dialogism and the fusion of diverse voices, has shaped a narrative structure that reflects history, society, and contemporary identity in a unique and innovative way. The result is a poem that, through contradictions and textual diversity, reaches a new definition of language, narrative, and meaning.
How Does the Narrative Structure of the Poem Reflect a Philosophical Contemplation on Subjectivity, and How Do the Disjointed Narratives Progress Through Existential Despair?
The narrative structure of my poetry is a direct reflection of my lived experience as a migrant poet, navigating between two symbolic systems—Iranian and Western. This position places me in a fragmented and scattered reality. On one hand, my Iranian identity, often reconstructed through nostalgia, incomplete memories, and fragmented narratives, and on the other, my encounters with Western cultural and intellectual systems, both fail to offer a cohesive narrative.
This gap aligns with Lacan’s concept of the “divide between the symbolic order and the real”—a space where language and cultural systems cannot fully reflect the complexities of subjective experience.
This fragmentation, which mirrors my psychological state, has naturally shaped the narrative structure in my poems. Instead of progressing in a linear and cohesive manner, the narratives move through separate and disconnected moments. These fragmented narratives not only illustrate the multilayered complexities of migrant identity but also create space for philosophical reflection and the recreation of meaning in its existing form.
From a Lacanian perspective, this condition connects to the concept of the “fundamental lack”. Lack refers to the gap between human desire and reality, which is never fully resolved. In my case, this lack is tied to separation from Iran, both physically and symbolically. This separation, accompanied by a deep sense of alienation from direct participation in Iran’s cultural, social, or political life, has led to a form of philosophical despair.
However, this despair, contrary to its appearance, is not a closed ending. Despair in my poetry, much like desire in Lacan’s theory, is a driving force that propels the narratives forward and enables their reinvention.
Subjectivity, evident in the structure of these narratives, also arises from these tensions. My narratives are not merely reflections of external reality but representations of my psychological and mental state.
How Do the Names in This Poem Contribute to Its Conceptual Depth and Expressive Meaning?
The use of names in this collection stems from my intertextual approach, which draws on diverse cultural, literary, historical, and personal contexts. These names function not only as standalone symbols but also as bridges to broader narratives and symbolic frameworks, integrating the poetry into a dialogue with multiple texts and traditions.
For instance, the title "Frida’s Deer" establishes a link between Frida Kahlo’s painting The Wounded Deer and the poem’s narrative and symbolic elements. In this painting, Kahlo portrays herself as a wounded deer, with arrows piercing her body, yet her face remains calm and composed. This image symbolizes the acceptance of suffering as an inseparable part of human identity.
The reference to Derrida in this poem connects to the instability of meaning. Here, the symbols and motifs from M. Dowlatabadi’s novel Gazelle, My Fate intersect with Derrida’s philosophical lens, reflecting my interpretation of the story. In Dowlatabadi’s work, the name "Gazelle" operates as a fluid symbol, shifting between the girl and the gazelle, mirroring semantic deferral and meaning displacement. This fluidity is echoed in my lines: "Gazelle of her fate, Gazelle of yours, I—who am not—Frida’s wounded deer."
This theme repeats in: "Until Forough / descends into me / I ascend from her," emphasizing the elusive, Derridean nature of fate and chance.
Similarly, "The Sun Also Rises" is directly inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s novel of the same name, subtly invoking themes of identity instability, alienation, and the search for meaning—a reflection of my lived experience, which materializes in the poem.
The reference to "Gemini" represents a non-scientific approach to existence, hinting at duality and fluidity within the world’s structure.
These intertextual references and symbolic names create a network of meanings, drawing inspiration from past literary and cultural sources while reconstructing them within a new framework. My goal has been to transform poetry into a layered and unique experience—one that honors its original sources yet surpasses them, offering a fresh perspective.
How Do the Short Verses in This Collection Reflect the Self-Driven Journey of Modern Human Restlessness, and How Should They Be Read in Contemplative Silence?
The short verses in this collection emerged during periods when my interaction with audiences was primarily through social media, particularly Instagram. This engagement, unconsciously, influenced the form and structure of my works. The inherent limitations of these platforms—such as restricted post space and short-lived story formats—directly shaped both the structure and content of my poetry.
These constraints, although seemingly restrictive, provided a creative foundation for new poetic forms. The result is a concise and condensed structure, where every word and phrase is carefully chosen to enhance engagement, evoke emotions, or convey meaning in its most essential form.
By contrast, the longer poems in this collection were written during periods when I had distanced myself from social media, allowing for greater freedom in time and space for artistic creation.
This is precisely the point I had previously mentioned regarding the transformation of artistic expression under the influence of digital platforms. This shift can also be analyzed through Bourdieu’s “cultural field theory”, which examines how social spaces and power structures shape artistic expression, form, and content.
How Does the Social Vision in This Collection—Through an Avant-Garde and Grotesque Approach—Reshape Language, Narrative, and the Dramatic Elements of Expression to Convey the Suffering of Contemporary Iranian Identity in Persian?
I have always been fascinated by magical realism, whether in the works of authors like Borges and Márquez or in the Southern School of Iranian magical realism, as seen in the writings of Ahmad Mahmoud, Moniro Ravanipour, and Sadegh Chubak. This style, which merges everyday realities with surreal and fantastical elements, has been a deep source of inspiration for me.
However, the avant-garde and grotesque qualities in my poetry also stem from living in a postmodern world. Like many of my contemporaries, I do not believe in a singular, universal truth; for me, truth is relative and dependent on perspective and the narrative framework in which it unfolds. Deleuze and Guattari, in their book A Thousand Plateaus, define the concept of rhizome, which serves as a metaphor for how meaning and knowledge emerge in the modern world. Unlike hierarchical structures, the rhizome moves non-linearly, multiplicatively, and in scattered formations—a characteristic of many postmodern works, including my poetry.
Nonetheless, I still believe in narrative cohesion in poetry—but not through traditional linear structures. Instead, cohesion emerges through deep semantic and sensory connections between various elements of the poem.
These perspectives reflect my broader philosophy and approach to literature. However, at the time Letters of Lead was published, Derrida’s deconstructionist theories and Reza Baraheni’s linguistic innovations profoundly influenced my thinking. Derrida’s deconstruction, with its emphasis on meaning instability and fluidity in language, allowed me to step away from traditional poetic forms and craft a multi-layered linguistic structure. Meanwhile, Baraheni’s focus on the musicality and rhythm of language introduced a dynamic process in my poetry, where each line unconsciously determined the trajectory of the next.
This process often led to unexpected results, ones I could not predict at the outset of writing. These spontaneous shifts are, to me, an essential part of the creative experience, where language and rhythm—beyond my conscious control—open new expressive pathways in poetry.
How Does the Romantic Perspective in Your Work Convey a Profound and Thoughtful Presence of the Beloved, Reflecting a Deep and Composed Serenity?
I must admit that this interpretation of my poetry is new and unexpected for me. However, I revisited the few romantic poems in this collection and examined them more closely.
What stood out during this rereading, something I had not previously noticed, was that even my most romantic poems maintain an intrinsic connection to nature—my emotions and affections manifest within natural phenomena. This characteristic, though unintentional, aligns with my spiritual perspective on humanity and nature.
I believe that humans are merely a part of nature, and what we experience as individuality is nothing more than an illusion. From my point of view, even the deepest emotions find meaning within our existence in this world, and in this sense, love is also part of a larger flow of life that surpasses individual boundaries.
Perhaps that is why, in my poetry, the beloved takes on an existence beyond mere personal experience.
How Does the Feminist and Transcendent Presence of Women in This Collection Reflect a Narrative of Independence, Rebellion, and Artistic Liberation?
As an Iranian woman, my life has always existed in a contradiction between my lived experiences and the perception I hold of myself—a contradiction that, perhaps unconsciously, has manifested in my poetry. Above all, I see myself as a human being, and I have constantly questioned why my gender identity should dictate my presence in the world. However, the world around me—its laws, expectations, and boundaries—insists on reinforcing this difference, turning it into a perpetual challenge between what I am and how I am perceived.
This struggle between individual identity and societal expectations has surfaced naturally in my poems. The women in this collection, with their transgressive identities and awareness of their existence, embody both this conflict and a resistance against it. They are not merely representations of gender but free and independent beings seeking to liberate themselves from linguistic restrictions and social norms.
At the time I wrote this collection, I had not yet experienced pregnancy, recurrent miscarriage, or motherhood. Thus, my view on womanhood was shaped by the perspective I described above. However, now that I have fully experienced my feminine body, my feminist vision has become more embodied—a transformation reflected more deeply in my next collection, A Head Full of Sounds (یک سر و هزار صدا).