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Our Shining Star
Forough
Farrokhzad |
Forough Farrokhzad, was born in
1935 to a middle class family in Tehran. By the age of eleven she had
already started composing poetry
Her first collection of poems was published in 1951 a year after she had
married, She then went on to publish her most famous collection of poems
Asir (captive) the following year. Her marrige ended after two years and
Forough, who had to give up the custody of her only son, Kamyar, was hospitalized
for emotional distress. In 1956 she spent nine months in Italy. Her second
collection, Divar (The Wall), was published during this period. She dedicated
this volume of twenty-five poems to her ex-husband “in remembering our
past together, and with the hope that this insignificant gift will be
a response to his unlimited kindness.”
In 1957, she travelled in Italy and Germany, and the third collection,
Osyan (The Rebellion) was released.
Forough began to work on various films and adopted a boy
by the name of Hossein (Esfandiyar). Her activities, as well as her status
as a divorced female poet, attracted much attention and considerable disapproval.
In 1964, Another Birth, her fourth volume of poetry, was published, dedicated
to her companion and film producer, Golestan. The same year saw the release
of the first edition of her Selected Poems. The next year UNESCO produced
a thirty-minute film on her life, and Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci
filmed a fifteen-minute interview with her. Forough died in a car crash
in February 1967, when she was thirty-two. Forough, became a legend and
the most celebrated woman in the 1100-year history of Persian literature.
Adapted from Zarrin Shaghaghi's site: Forough Farrokhzad.
The Captive [ Asir ]
I want you, yet I know that never
can I embrace you to my heart's content.
you are that clear and bright sky.
I, in this corner of the cage, am a captive bird.
from behind the cold and dark bars
directing toward you my rueful look of astonishment,
I am thinking that a hand might come
and I might suddenly spread my wings in your direction.
I am thinking that in a moment of neglect
I might fly from this silent prison,
laugh in the eyes of the man who is my jailer
and beside you begin life anew.
I am thinking these things, yet I know
that I can not, dare not leave this prison.
even if the jailer would wish it,
no breath or breeze remains for my flight.
from behind the bars, every bright morning
the look of a child smile in my face;
when I begin a song of joy,
his lips come toward me with a kiss.
O sky, if I want one day
to fly from this silent prison,
what shall I say to the weeping child's eyes:
forget about me, for I am captive bird?
I am that candle which illumines a ruins
with the burning of her heart.
If I want to choose silent darkness,
I will bring a nest to ruin.
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Call
to Arms
Only you, O Iranian woman, have remained
In bonds of wretchedness, misfortune, and cruelty;
If you want these bonds broken,
grasp the skirt of obstinacy
Do not relent because of pleasing promises,
never submit to tyranny;
become a flood of anger, hate and pain,
excise the heavy stone of cruelty.
It is your warm embracing bosom
that nurtures proud and pompous man;
it is your joyous smile that bestows
on his heart warmth and vigour.
For that person who is your creation,
to enjoy preference and superiority is shameful;
woman, take action because a world
awaits and is in tune with you.
Sleeping in a dark grave is happier for you
than this abject servitude and misfortune;
where is that proud man..? Tell him
to bow his head henceforth at your threshold.
Where it that proud mane? Tell him to get up
because a woman is here rising to battle him;
her words are the truth, in which cause
she will never shed tears out of weakness.
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