Poetry Friday, Iran Edition: Forugh Farrokhzad, “why should I stop, why?”

These past two weeks, we’ve been as spellbound and horrified by events in Iran as the rest of the nation, paying special attention to the women often at its center. Tragically, we can add to that list Neda Agha-Soltan, whose killing apparently by security forces was seen on video by millions. (To see it yourself, click this link from the New York Times.) And NPR’s  Jacki Lyden has provided essential insight for WVFC.

Lyden pointed out, as have many others, that women have long been at the forefront of movement for change. Farzaneh Milani, Director of Studies in Women and Gender and Professor of Persian and Women Studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, wrote in her 1992 Veils and Words (The Emerging Voices of Iranian Women Writers):

A real revolution is, in fact, shaking the foundations of Iranian society, a revolution with women at its very center. Veiled or unveiled, Iranian women are reappraising traditional spaces, boundaries, and limits. They are renegotiating old sanctions and sanctuaries. They are challenging male allocations of power, space, and resources. Exercising increasing control over how reality is defined, they are redefining their own status.

It is in this context of the negotiation of boundaries that the veil is now worn by some women, not to segregate, but to desegregate. The genealogy of this revolution can be traced back more than a century. Women writers, at the forefront of this movement, have consistently spoken the previously unspoken, articulated the once unarticulated.

As an example, Milani points to Forugh Farrokhzad, who we’d already chosen for  our Poetry Friday.

Taken at Farrokzhad's gravesite by Bita Vakili: Zahir-al-Doleh, Winter 2002.

Poet, filmmaker and a national iconoclast until her death in 1967, Forugh Farrokhzād (Persian: فروغ فرخزاد)(also spelled as Forough) was arguably Iran’s most  significant female poet of the twentieth century. Born in Tehran to career military officer Colonel Mohammad Bagher Farrokhzad and his wife Touran Vaziri-Tabar, Farrokhzād attended school until the ninth grade, then learned painting and sewing at a girl’s school for the manual arts. At age sixteen or seventeen she was married to Parviz Shapour, an acclaimed satirist. Forugh continued her education with classes in painting and sewing and moved with her husband to  Ahvaz. A year later, she had her only child, a son named Kāmyār (subject of her A Poem for You).

That marriage lasted two years; Forugh then moved back to Tehran to write poetry, and published her first volume,  The Captive, in 1955. She published two more volumes, The Wall and The Rebellion, before going to Tabriz to make  The House is Black, an award-winning film about Iranians affected by leprosy.By 1963, when she published Another Birth, Farogh’s poetry was hailed as “mature and sophisticated” and as “a profound change from previous modern Iranian poetic conventions.” Her poem “Let us believe in the beginning of the cold season,” published posthumously after her 1967 death in a car accident,  and is considered by some the best-structured modern poem in Persian. (The video at the end of this post gives you an idea of her voice, and how some poems sound in Farsi.)

We offer the following with deep thanks  to Farrokzhed, and as a salute to  Zahra, Neda and Iranian women everywhere.

On Earth

I never wanted to be a star
in the sky’s mirage,
a select soul
or an unspeaking friend of angels.
I never left the earth
or took up with stars.

I stand on the earth
and my body like a plant
absorbs wind, sun and water
to stay alive.

I’m looking out the window.
I’m an echo,
not eternal,
and look for nothing but a song’s echo.
In the wailing chant is joy
and better than the plain silence of pain.
I look for no refuge
in the dew on the lily of my body.

People walking by have written memories
with a black line of love
on the walls of my life’s cottage.
Arrrows are in my heart,
the candle is upside down.
What are left are quiet dots of faded colors
in puzzling words of madness.

Every lip against my lips
conceived a star
and floated on the night river of my memories.
What good is a star?

translated by Girdhard Tikku (From: Women Poets From Antiquity to Now, ed. Aliki Barnstone (Schocken, 1992).

I’m Sad

I’m sad
I’m sad

I go to the veranda and feel with my fingers
The taut skin of the night

No one will introduce me
To the sun
No one will take me to the feast of the sparrows

Keep in mind the flight
The bird is to die

translated by Reza Baraheni

Why should I stop, why?
The birds have gone off to find water ways,
the horizon is vertical and moving is rocketing.
shining planets spin
at the edge of sight
why should I stop, why?

Translated by Farzanah Milani

In Iran’s Election Turmoil, it’s Zahra’s Time (Updated)

As the votes in Iran’s presidential election are counted, many have been mesmerized by this week’s vivid campaign rallies, full boisterousness and youthful energy. But it hasn’t all been about former prime minister Mira Mousavi, who hopes to unseat Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Many of those dancing in the street were there as much to see Mousavi’s wife, 62-year old Zahra Rahvanard.Today’s Los Angeles Times notes:

Some in the Iranian and Western news media have likened Rahnavard to Michelle Obama, but she more closely resembles Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former first lady and New York senator whom many considered a driving force behind her husband’s political career and presidency.

In addition to helping raise three children, Rahnavard once served as an advisor to former President Mohammad Khatami, has written at least 15 books and is an accomplished sculptor whose works appear throughout the capital. For years, Mousavi, who served in the now-defunct post of prime minister during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, was described as “the husband of Rahnavard.”

On the campaign trail, she makes up for her 67-year-old husband’s lack of charisma.

“Today we can close our eyes and see ourselves,” she tells the Tehran audience, wearing a black cloak over a pink traditional gown, her voice rising. “Never have women had so much self-awareness. Women have always been just under the skin of history. Today, we assert ourselves.”

Rahvanard waa speaking, reports Tehran Bureau, to a deep hunger — and to the growing quiet prominence of Iran’s women:

Women’s issues continue to be the most controversial and the most paradoxical aspect of Iranian social life. On one hand, the Islamic dress code, or hijab, is compulsory for women and young girls; on the other hand, women constitute the majority of the college student population in Iran. On one hand, the conservative version of Islamic family values emphasizes their role as mothers; on the other hand, the government of the Islamic Republic has pursued family planning programs vigorously and with resounding success—Iran has seen the sharpest decline in the fertility rate in the region. Women own their own businesses and work as pilots, engineers, farmers, workers, teachers and researchers; and yet, they face numerous challenges every day.

Few women capture and represent this paradox as vividly as Dr. Rahnavard, Mousavi’s wife. Fiercely independent, Rahnavard met Mousavi while both were students at the faculty of arts at the University of Tehran. Her future husband was a promising architect, a shy member of the Islamic Association of Students, or Anjoman Islami, and a budding painter. In fact intellectual pursuits and artistic endeavors have played a prominent role in both of their lives.

Update: In the growing turmoil that has followed the vote, with Ahmadinejad’s camp declaring immediate victory, continued demonstrations (video here), and the BBC ordered out of the country,  Tehranbureau.com reports: “Zahra Rahnavard gave a speech at Tehran University today, Sunday, June 14. To a large audience of students, Ms. Rahnavard announced the latest official statement issued by Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has pledged he will not back down from contesting the fraudulent 22 Khordad election results. Mousavi calls on all Reformist supporters to take part in a PEACEFUL MARCH & MASS DEMONSTRATION in 20 cities across Iran on Monday, June 15.” Andrew Sullivan adds this from an Iranian reader:

Zahra Rahnavard gave a speech at Tehran University today, Sunday, June 14. To a large audience of students, Ms. Rahnavard announced the latest official statement issued by Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has pledged he will not back down from contesting the fraudulent 22 Khordad election results. Mousavi calls on all Reformist supporters to take part in a PEACEFUL MARCH & MASS DEMONSTRATION in 20 cities across Iran on Monday, June 15 (doshanbeh, 25 Khordad) at 17:00 to denounce the election results as fraud. He has applied for a license to protect the safety of protestors. The Tehran location is Valiasr Avenue, from Valiasr Square to Tajrish Square. The locations in other cities are listed below. Mousavi has also called for a NATIONAL STRIKE on Tuesday, June 16 (Khordad 26) and asked all those who contest the results to close their shops, businesses, etc. and for employees to not go to work that day. Communication is critical to success for a large turnout, so please forward this to every Iranian you know. The statement is verified on Ghalam News (ghalamnews.ir), the official site of the Mousavi campaign (site rasmi setad).

U.S. newspapers are already speculating about a possible “Obama Effect” if Mousavi wins, given Ahmadinejad’s well-known hostility toward the U.S. and Obama’s speech in Cairo last week. But here at WVFC, we’ll keep thinking about the Zahra Effect.