From the child's eyes on his parents' quarrels to a young woman's everyday life, sex life and ruin. The violence is found all the way in the poet, the scriptwriter and the podiatrist Arazo Arif's collection of poetry collections Dark inside and the moisture.

- Violence in close relationships is something that permeates the entire society. That's one of the reasons why it permeates the entire book, she says.

Normalized violence

Every other page is important so the reader has to pop up the paper to read what is written. In the beginning, the poems are about a child's experiences in a violent home, then, in a seemingly natural transition, about a young person's encounter with love, the torment of the past and more violence.

- I have been afraid of such a chronological reading because I do not want to paint a picture that this is cause and effect. At the same time, there is quite a bit of evidence that it is actually relevant. If you have witnessed or been subjected to violence, it is not strange that you then normalize it in some way, says Arazo Arif.

Lost in love

She is interested in how violence and love can eventually become parts of the same thing. She has a background as active in the women's journal movement and has been a voice in the cultural sphere through the cultural site Kultwatch, among others. Recently she started the Looney talks podium where she invites guests to talk about the connection between creativity and mental health.

- I have met so many people, both through the women's movement and in my other life, who are so lost when it comes to how to love each other, she says.

Arazo Arif says she believes that love that involves violence is more common than we think, and that the view of what the violence means should be broadened.

- There are notions that it is about blows or extreme violations. It can be much more subtle than that. Jealousy for example. It is something that can be very violent but that we have normalized in our society to a large extent, not least through culture.