Nazm 7 – no different from birds the souls speak

Nazm 7, for piccolo with or without electronic music background, as quasi-concert version, from the chamber-pantomim-ballet based on the poetry collection ”The Tale of Fatumeh” by the Swedish poet Gunnar Ekelöf (1907-1968).

It is the tale of Fatumeh, a girl sold into prostitution by her mother, then for a while kept as a concubine by a prince, abondened but surviving by force of spirit. Although the story is conventionally tragic, the vitality of Fatumeh brings a completely new dimension to the story.

The collection of poems are devided into two parts; the first naming the poems Naẓm 1-29, the second Tesbīḥ 1-29.

Naẓm, literally meaning “stringing (pearls, beads, etc.)” early acquired the meaning of “versifying” and became almost synonymous with “poetry”. The comparison of a poem to a necklace, or verses to pearls, is apt in view of the relative independence of the individual verses, held together on the string of the uniform metre and rhyme.

The string of beads is usually made of 3 x 33 beads. Between these groups of 33 a distinguishing bead is inserted, often in the shape of a snake’s head. This special bead goes by many names, one of which is ”dasta”.

As mentioned above, Ekelöf doesn’t use the number 33 but instead the prime-number 29, which he thought would get a better ”sum” in the finished work. And just as with the pearl rope, he inserts special poems in-between.

No, no different from birds the souls speak to each other No different from souls the birds speak Where our ear needs a multitude of words of laboriously jointed word so that what’s spoken will arrive for them a few is enough only differently eager differently stressed.