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From Rumi To Today, Curly Hair Has Always Been Poetry · We Are Spiraling

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Previously on We Are Spiraling.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Ovid's Amoris 1.14.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I found a translation online.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: In the mornings, you love to lounge on your purple spread bed, your hair down and still uncombed.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was lovely, loose, and wild.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: You looked like a Thracian Maynad sprawled exhausted on green grass.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I had to look up what that even means.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: A Thracian Maynad is a follower of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and festivals.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, back to Amoris 1.14.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: You looked like a Thracian Maynad sprawled exhausted on green grass.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Just think of the horrible tortures those poor, downsoft curls had to suffer at your hands.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: How patiently they endured the rack of hot curling irons as you twisted them into ringlets.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Again and again I cried.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a crime, a crime to singe them.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Is your heart cast iron?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Have mercy on your own head.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Don't force the beauty nature gave you.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: The poem is quite long, but I like leaving it at that ending.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Don't force the beauty nature gave you.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is Priya Anand, and we are spiraling.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: In this show, we talk about curly hair, or really any hair, to learn more about our culture.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: From our personal identity to how the world sees us.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: The excerpt above was from one of our early episodes called How to Look Like a Greek God.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's from the ancient Roman poet Ovid.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: The ancient Greeks and Romans had developed primitive curling irons called columnistrums.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: They were basically skewers that got heated over coals and they'd use them to curl their hair.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: In the poem, Ovid laments that his lover, who already had curly hair, was damaging her hair so much by curling it even further.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Ancient Greeks and Romans viewed curly hair as the most desirable and fascinating.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's why it's featured in so much art and poetry from the time.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: In the Odyssey, for example, at one point, Odysseus' hair is described as flowing down in curls like hyacinth blooms.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Curly hair is used as a symbol of romance, beauty, and charm in poetry across cultures.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Throughout history, poets have, like me, been inspired to make curly hair a defining feature and often the focus of their work.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sharing a few works that resonated with me, and I hope they make you feel like you are a work of art.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: It comes up often in poems by Hafiz, one of the most prominent classic Persian poets.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: For these verses, I'm using English translations of the Farsi poems I found online.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: So if there's something off, please know my intentions are pure.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: There are actually fewer translations than you expect online.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: DM me on Instagram, we're at WeAreSpiraling if you have any feedback.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, here's a few verses from Hafiz from Guzzle One from Divan, his most popular work.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Longing for the sweet scent the morning wind unlocks from her locks.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Many a heart filled with blood for the curls of her musky tress.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Curly hair is also a feature in Rumi's work.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Here's one example.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Seeking love, I see it winding in your curls.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Seeking life, I see it walking down your street.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Driven by deep thirst, I drink only to see a dream upon the water, you face to face with me.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: When we move to modern poetry, I can't let an episode go by without pointing you to Elizabeth Acevedo.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: She was named the 2022 Young People's Poet Laureate.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Her poem Hair, I'll link to it on our substack at WeArtSpiraling.com.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: You have to watch her perform it.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I will leave you with one more modern piece of poetry about hair that I found the other night while doing research for this episode.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: By Yu Chi Lin, a Chinese American poet in New York.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Abercadabra.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: She published it in Poetry Magazine in 2019.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: My mother holds the wriggling mouse in her gloved hand, thumb poised above its vertebrae.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: My father, in his white coat behind her, whispers the right places to break.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: She shakes her head, no no.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Mercy is a small name we give an animal not ourselves.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: I knew she had it in her, my mother, holding me all those years ago, in the chairs my father cut my hair, so you don't look like a girl against the back of my skull.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: He made a fist and pulled.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like a magician and his assistant, they did the act together.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Transformation, dismemberment, and shove her in a hat.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: The girl vanished under the black scrimm, and a boy was lifted by the neck.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: That cowlick.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was the only thing wild about me.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: In my twenties, I grew my hair out and slathered perm salt to break the disulfide bonds.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I stroked my curls, each strand, a helix hissing secrets.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: I thought if I looked forward enough, no one could claim me.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not even shame, which as all things must grow from the root.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna read the part that sticks with me the most again.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: I stroked my curls, each strand, a helix hissing secrets.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: I thought if I looked forward enough, no one could claim me.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Not even shame, which as all things must grow from the root.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: This portion of the poem feels like the essence of life.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: We sometimes search for ways to transform, but ultimately we still do just find ourselves no matter where we turn.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I also feel this poem embodies so much of what we discuss on the show, which is that hair is a symbol for so much more in our lives.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: If there's a question, topic, theory, part of life you'd like me to investigate in a future episode, email me at Priya at WeARSpiraling.com.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're on Instagram and TikTok at WeArespiraling, and we post a lot of bonus clips there that don't make it into the episodes, so check them out.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're on Instagram and TikTok at We Are Spiraling, and we post a lot of bonus clips that don't make it into the episodes.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: We are spiraling is hosted by Myura, my upcoming haircare line.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Waitlist at MyuraBeauty.com.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's M-A-Y-U-R-A-Beauty.com.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Audio engineering by Citizens of Sound, and theme music by Love Gun, an artist who also happens to be curly.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to you soon.