{"id":10863,"date":"2022-10-15T08:12:32","date_gmt":"2022-10-15T06:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=10863"},"modified":"2025-09-10T12:30:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T10:30:02","slug":"i-will-write-homage-to-angel-guinda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/i-will-write-homage-to-angel-guinda\/","title":{"rendered":"“I Will Write”\u2014Homage to \u00c1ngel Guinda and Mahsa Amini"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Portrait of Spanish poet-writer A\u0301ngel Guinda by Berna Marti\u0301nez-Forega (courtesy El Pai\u0301s).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the inaugural issue of Poetry Markaz, we present this searingly defiant poem by beloved Spanish poet \u00c1ngel Guinda<\/a> (1948-2022), who passed away earlier this year. \u00a0With this poem we honor the memory of Mahsa Amini, the 22 years young woman who was brutally murdered by the Islamic Republic of Iran\u2019s “morality police” for not fully covering her hair. Since then, her name has become like a\u00a0 glowing ember, alive and radiating heat, and blown by the wind of discontent it has fast traveled across Iran and set the country on fire.\u00a0 Brave young women and men have taken to the streets. Guinda\u2019s poem echoes their shouts that they will not be silenced.<\/p>\n

Let us also remember the novelist Salman Rushdie who was attacked by a deranged zealot on Aug. 12. \u00a0I say \u201cderanged\u201d because a mind twisted by blind devotion to any ideology that incites violence is neither balanced nor sane.<\/p>\n

In 1989 Islamic Republic of Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader, Khomeini, issued an edict demanding Rushdie’s death over his novel The Satanic Verses<\/em>. What is disturbing is that most people who accepted Khomeini\u2019s edict and blindly called the novel blasphemous never had read the novel for themselves, nor ever wondered why a fictional character in a novel should prompt a fatwa against its author.<\/p>\n

Yet Rushdie, despite all efforts to silence his pen, has kept on writing fearlessly while vocally advocating freedom of expression for all.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

To take away any life in the name of God is to assume one is intimate with that Unknowable Divine. Isn\u2019t that a greater \u201csin\u201d than making up characters for stories and calling them works of fiction, or asking for our God-given liberty to exist as dignified human beings, with liberty to choose how to worship, dress, and exist within the bounds of a peaceful democracy?<\/p>\n

Dear readers, look closely. God weeps behind the mask tattooed on its face.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2014Poetry Markaz editor, Sholeh Wolp\u00e9\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/h4>\n