Editorial Note by Max Wallis
Golnoosh Nour’s Burnt Divinities quite aptly burns at the intersection of inheritance and identity. Moving between myth, language, and lineage, the poem asks what it means to carry the sins—or sorrows—of our ancestors, and whether grief can ever truly be translated.
From the opening declaration: “I am blessed, made of two extremes: my mother’s / death and my father’s madness” Nour situates the self as both divine and damned, glitter and garbage. The voice shifts between confession and incantation, haunted by familial karma and ancient history, the white dog biting the void.
Greek myth becomes a mirror for Persian memory: the Acropolis in flames, the red scorpion’s shattered sting. Yet in its closing gesture, the poem resists despair. It reaches toward laughter, childhood, and the possibility of release: “Our pain isn’t ours!”
Nour’s poem offers both rebellion and relief: a reclamation of joy from inherited ruin.
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Dr Golnoosh Nour is a British Iranian writer and lecturer. She is the author of The Ministry of Guidance (2020) and Rocksong (2021) – both shortlisted for the Polari Prize. Golnoosh’s poetry pamphlet Impure Thoughts came out in 2022, and was shortlisted for the Live Canon Pamphlet Competition. She has also been published by Granta and Vintage.
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