Landays (pronounced land-eyes) are 22 syllable, two-line poems composed primarily by Pashtun women who live on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are passed on orally and are anonymous, as these women are usually illiterate and poetry for women — not to mention education — is forbidden by the Taliban. The Harvard Review says, "The landay is a vibrant, clandestine, and ancient tradition."
Eliza Griswold, a Pulitzer-winning journalist, has translated many landays and collected them in a book published by FSG: I Am the Beggar of the World.
Here are a few landays from the book:
May God make you into a riverbank flower
so I may smell you when I gather water.
You sold me to an old man, father.
May God destroy your home, I was your daughter.
Leave your sword and fetch your gun.
Away to the mountains, the Americans have come.
Your eyes aren’t eyes. They’re bees.
I can find no cure for their sting.
When sisters sit together, they always praise their brothers.
When brothers sit together, they sell their sisters to others.
Two years ago the Talibs favored boys and left the girls alone.
A woman then was worth her weight in stone.
You can read more on landays on the Poetry Foundation's page on the form, which was written by Griswold and is excellent.
Griswold also wrote this piece for the BBC: The 22 Syllables That Can Get You Killed, and spoke with PBS NewsHour about the artform (6m30):
