Zan: Where Does Shame Hide in the Belly of the Beast

Zan is an expedition through the assimilation of a first generation Iranian-American woman. It offers readers a journey through the contradictions, divinity, depression, madness, and beauty that are intertwined within the collective immigrant lineage. Despite being composed of singular poems, the work as a whole tells a complete story. Exploring expansive unwrapt themes such as identity, race, Persian culture, clouds, snakes, childhood, suffocation, surrender, genocide, colonization, god, the Church, fruit, adulthood, adolescence, the ocean. Stylistically, the poetry offers dialectical and thought-provoking opinions while maintaining a juvenile sense of play to afford readers the opportunity to immerse and interrogate within themselves the duality that exists within the diasporic perspective. It asks readers, "would we drown in the Truth?"With echoes of Rupi Kaur's fearless vulnerability, the whimsical, dreamlike beauty of Petra Collins' Fairytales, and Cathy Park Hong's relentless invention of bent words and culture, this collection weaves together haunting poems and arresting visuals to explore the complexities of the soul. The tradition of Persian poetry meets the vitality of the contemporary woman: Zan is an invitation to embrace the light and dark within, and to find healing in the heart between. Read more