Shams Langeroudi, like Hafez, Reconstructs the Meaning of Life with Humor

According to the reporter of the Iran Book News Agency (IBNA), Shams Langeroudi is one of the most popular poets of recent decades in Iran, whose free verse poems have been warmly received by various groups of literature enthusiasts. From his first book, Shams Langeroudi showed that he favors surrealism as one of the new and innovative capacities of expression in modern poetry, and gradually, with further study and research in Iranian poetry and deeper familiarity with world poetry, he has added more capacities to contemporary Persian poetry than what initial surrealism offered. This factor has led Rahman Rezaei to examine the influence of this literary school on Shams’s poems in his book ‘Madness, Wisdom, and Surrealism; an Understanding of Shams Langeroudi’s Poetry,’ recently published by Morvarid Publishing.

On the occasion of Shams Langeroudi’s birthday, we had an interview with Rahman Rezaei, author of ‘Madness, Wisdom, and Surrealism; an Understanding of Shams Langeroudi’s Poetry,’ which you can read below:

What was your motivation for writing this research work?

My main goal was to write a book within the framework of modern literary criticism and theory and the principles of the surrealist literary school, providing a methodical analysis of poetic works. In this regard, I chose one of the most popular contemporary poets to create a reference book for poetic criticism and analysis.

What is the most important structural and technical feature of Shams Langeroudi’s poems?

The structure of his poetry, from the creation of a poetic sequence to colloquial and philosophical poetry, has vast imaginative and many implicit connotations that are considered surrealistic. His colloquial language and diverse vocabulary reflect the connection of everyday language with different social classes in Iran, and the subversion of myths, social humor, and themes of love and existential anxiety converge at one point in his poetry.

To what extent do you believe in the ‘easy yet impossible’ nature of Shams Langeroudi’s poems?

The most important characteristic of his poetry is its ‘easy yet impossible’ nature, because understanding its initial layers is possible for the general public, but accessing the implicit layers of his poetry is not possible for everyone; rather, it requires historical, religious, mystical, and philosophical knowledge. To write poetry like Shams is impossible unless a poet has vast studies, extensive lived experience, and philosophical concerns comparable to his.

What fundamental characteristics must a poem have, beyond some apparent features that might make it resemble a surreal work, to truly be considered surreal?

Surrealism is a rebellion against the aesthetics of the modern world in language and content. Humor, paradox, the discovery of strange and surreal worlds, and their convergence at one point to transcend the banality of everyday life through an exploration of the individual and collective unconscious is what constitutes surreality or surrealism.

In the surreal elements of his poems, which poets has Shams Langeroudi been most influenced by?

According to Shams Langeroudi himself, he was influenced by Lorca and Ritsos, but the influence of the poetry of Shamlou, Forough Farrokhzad, and Sepehri on his inclination towards surrealism is also noteworthy. Of course, his research and study of various styles of Persian poetry, especially the Indian style, which he addressed in his book ‘Tornado of Mad Passion,’ has enriched his surrealist language.

How do you evaluate the place of surreal poetry in today’s literature?

Surreal poetry was sparked by Houshang Irani. The magazine ‘Khorous-e-Jangi’ reflected surrealist poetry, and Ahmadreza Ahmadi’s New Wave also represented a part of it. Good examples emerged in the poems of Yadollah Royaee and Forough Farrokhzad, but Sohrab Sepehri can be considered a prominent example of a surrealist poet before Shams Langeroudi. Other poets such as Reza Barahani, Saffarzadeh, Seyed Ali Salehi, and Babachahi have good experiences with surrealist poetry. Qaysar Aminpour has good examples of surrealist poetry in his books ‘Sudden Mirrors’ and ‘Grammar of Love.’ In general, any poem that presents new imagination and imagery moves on the border of surrealism, but in literary studies, the frequency of a poetic element forms the basis for the judgment of literary critics and researchers.

You mentioned in your book that Shams Langeroudi’s surrealist approach is evident even in the naming of his books. Could you explain this?

The naming of the books has been done with great care and meticulousness to reflect his lived world. In ‘Invisible Feast,’ ‘Sailor of the Streets,’ ‘Notes for a Wooden Nightingale,’ ‘Gardener of Hell,’ and ‘Dance with a Fake Passport,’ combinations full of humor, paradox, and irony are evident in the unconventional use of terms.

Please specifically tell us about the place of humor in Shams’s poems.

Shams Langeroudi uses various techniques of humor. By changing the tone in sentences, combining different linguistic genres in poetry, inversion, irony, and grotesque, using unconventional verbs, combining different social classes, and subverting myths, he creates tragic humor.

Please also explain the manifestation of dreams in Shams Langeroudi’s poetry. In a poem, he referred to ‘man / a puppet / who dreams / and lives his dreams.’ Where does this belief originate?

Surrealists believed that reality reflected human dreams and that the conflicts and struggles of life resulted from the contradiction and paradox of human dreams with reality. ‘Isms’ in the world were the dreams of those who shaped the world into its current form and have not added to human well-being.

Which of the surreal components is most prominent in Shams Langeroudi’s poetry?

The highest frequency of surreal components in Shams Langeroudi’s twenty-one books includes automatic writing, humor, dreams, and climatic perspective.

Please also clarify the influence of Khayyam’s ideas on Shams Langeroudi.

Khayyam, alongside the linear narrative of human movement in the world, contemplates immortality in the moment and refers to the theory of play in the world. In Khayyamism, in addition to carpe diem and joyous living, a kind of deconstruction is also seen; an escape from the patriarchal system with images he creates from pottery and greenery emphasizes the fragility and failure of human existence in the world. Shams Langeroudi, in addition to the artistic construction of the endless and meaningless image of life, shows its brevity and instability in the form of snow, which melts quickly and disappears into the ground. But unlike Khayyam, like Hafez, he reconstructs the meaning of life through humor and a critical reading of the world’s mechanisms, and hope for life flows in his lived experience.