By
Heidi Noroozy
When
a member of my Iranian family reaches a crossroads in life and feels in need of
advice, they turn to the Persian poet, Hafez. They engage in a ritual called fal-e Hafez, where you open a book of
Hafez poems to a random location and seek guidance in the wisdom you find
between the lines. After all, Hafez, Rumi, Ferdowsi, and the rest of Iran’s
pantheon of Persian poets occupy a special place in the Iranian soul.
As
an American, I’m far less adept at drawing wisdom from between the lines of 14th
century Persian verse, yet I still believe that poetry is a great source of
inspiration. Instead of seeking guidance from Hafez or Rumi, I’m more likely to
turn to another, more contemporary Persian poet: Forugh Farrokhzad.
Born
in 1935 in Tehran, Forugh spent much of her short life breaking down the taboos
and social conventions of her male-dominated world. At sixteen, she married a
cousin 15 years her senior and lived for the next few years in Ahvaz, a provincial
city near the border with Iraq. It was a time of great social change in Iran.
The shah had banned the veil in 1936, and many women, including Forugh, were
embracing their new found liberty. But not everyone was ready to accept women
entering public life.
Especially
not a strong-minded female poet whose work came straight from the heart and
explored deeply personal themes of love, sexuality, and the struggle for
balance between career and family life. Rumors of adulterous affairs followed
and crushed Forugh’s beleaguered marriage. After her divorce, she lost custody
of her young son, who was placed in the care of his father’s family.
Between
1955 and 1967, Forugh published four poetry collections. The literary journals
recognized her great talent and solicited her work, but Tehran’s literati
rejected her. They called her sha-ereh
(poetess), a term that denigrated her ability to become a serious artist and
implied that, as a woman, she could never be anything more than a wannabe poet.
Stories of sexual encounters, real or imagined, overshadowed her literary
accomplishments.
In
her early work, Forugh wrote frankly about her frustrations as a woman trying
to make her way in a man’s world and finding the only acceptable role as that
of wife and mother. In Captive, she
writes:
It’s
you I want, yet I know why
I could
never hold you to my heart’s content,
for
you’re the bright and cloudless sky
and I
am a bird captive in a cage.*
In
other poems, she writes candidly about sexuality from a woman’s perspective,
sometimes describing very specific experiences with lovers, as in the poem, Sin, which was considered quite
scandalous at the time of its publication:
I have
sinned a rapturous sin
in a
warm enflamed embrace,
sinned
in a pair of vindictive arms,
arms
violent and ablaze.*
Although
Forugh explored themes based on the female experience, she didn’t consider
herself a feminist poet. She dismissed the significance of her gender and saw
her role as an observer of humanity and society who happened to be born a
woman. In her later work, her themes grew more complex and broadened to include
injustice, social alienation, and religious intolerance.
Forugh Farrokhzad's grave in the Zahir-o-Dowleh Cemetery, Tehran |
In
1967, at the age of 32, Forugh Farrokhzad died in a car accident when she tried
to avoid a school bus and crashed into a wall. She was buried in Tehran on a
snowy February day, her funeral well attended by the literary luminaries who’d called
her a mere “poetess” just ten years before. Her final collection, Let’s Believe in the Dawn of the Cold Season,
was published posthumously.
Reading
Forugh’s poetry is like spending an evening in deep discussion with a dear friend
over a bottle of wine. I feel like I’ve gazed into the depths of her soul and
seen a reflection of myself there. But her life is also a source of inspiration.
She’s a woman who followed her heart despite constant rejection—and her
persistence paid off in the end. Today, she’s considered one of Iran’s greatest
poets, an artist who has earned every right to sit at the table with the likes
of Hafez, Rumi, and Ferdowsi.
To
read more of her work, check out these English versions of two poems (Sin and Reborn), translated by the Iranian-American poet, Sholeh Wolpé.
*Both
excerpts are from Sin: Selected Poems of Forugh
Farrokhzad, translated by Sholeh Wolpé.
Those are beautiful excerpts. Thank you for sharing them!
ReplyDeleteSo glad you enjoyed them, Beth.
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