One beautiful day in 1954, a nineteen-year-old woman appears in the editorial offices of one of Iran’s most influential magazines. She has a poem with her that she would like to have printed. “Sind” is about a young woman who passionately throws herself into a relationship with a forbidden lover: “Desire sparked a flame in his eyes; the red wine danced in the cup. In the soft bed, my body drunkenly quivered on his chest. » The publication accelerates Tehran’s cultural rumor mill. Is the poem autobiographical? And is it true that the lover in the poem is a famous literary editor? It does not make the scandal any less that the 19-year-old poet is a married mother. *** Over the next 13 years, Forugh Farrokhzad became Iran’s most important and most talked about poet. The brave poems and the strong will to decide over her own life lived on, even after her early death. Hearing Iranians talk about Forugh (Iranians almost always just use her first name), is almost like hearing them talk about a close and dear friend. It is as if the familiarity of the poems has made the woman behind the words a part of their lives. FORUGH IN COLOR: This picture of Forugh Farrokhzad is originally in black and white, but was colored afterwards. Photo: unknown / wikimedia commons Miniskirts in Tehran Forugh grew up in Shah-era Iran, a society characterized by a strict male-dominated culture. But the times she lived in changed quickly. The shah wanted to take Iran over into a modern world. He cultivated the relationship with the West – also with Norway. IN ANOTHER TIME: 27 May 1961 and some other diplomatic relations with Iran. Here we see the Shah of Persia (Iran) with Queen Farah Diba, waving from the castle in Oslo together with King Olav. THANKS FOR THE LAST: King Olav on an official visit to Iran in 1965. The king is presented with a Persian carpet as a gift from the Shah of Persia. Farah Diba (the Shah’s wife) on the right. During the 1960s, Iran’s capital Tehran was filled with cinemas, cabaret stages, fashion houses and short skirts. This image of a woman on the beach is from the 1960s: Iranian woman on the beach in the 1960s. Photo: Unknown / wikimedia commons Female students in Iran in the 1970s. Before the revolution. Photo: Unknown / wikimedia commons Window shopping in Tehran in the 1970s. Photo: Unknown / Wikimedia commons Unruly women demanded to be heard, and Forugh was at the forefront of the line. PIPE AND STYLE: Forugh Farrokhzad. Photo: Unknown / Wikimedia commons Her rebellious attitude to life shocked both through life and poetry. Forugh divorced and started relationships with men she was not married to. She wrote poems about adultery, about sex, horniness, despair and loneliness: “I sinned a sin full of pleasure, next to a shaking, stupefied form.o God, who knows what I didIn that dark and quiet seclusion.” All this that male poets have always written about, but which was unheard of for a woman. Forugh was shameless enough to demand that a woman’s intense life experiences were as good poetic material as any man’s. The renowned Farrokhzad expert, American-Iranian Sholeh Wolpé, describes the poet as follows on the website lookwhatshedid.com: – She refused to accept that being a girl limited her. She did what she wanted and of course was constantly punished for it. Forugh Farrokhzad’s life choice had a high price. A literary star After the divorce, Forugh was no longer allowed to see his son. She had a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide. At the same time, she continued to write, and after a study trip to various art environments in Europe, she got a job in an avant-garde film studio in Tehran. And it was here that Forugh met the love of his life, filmmaker Ebrahim Golestan. THE MAN IN HER LIFE: Ebrahim Golestan. Photo: Unknown photographer / Wikimedia commons Ebrahim was married and much older than Forugh. Nevertheless, the two began an intense relationship that soon became a public affair. For Forugh, life with Ebrahim Golestan was her most creative period. At last she had found a love partner who supported and inspired her. FILM JOB: Forugh Farrokhzad behind the camera. Photo: Unknown photographer / Wikimedia commons During this period, Forugh worked both on film and poetry, and it was now that she really renewed Persian literature. She broke with the austere, lofty verse form of the ghazal that had dominated the Persian poetic tradition for centuries. Forugh would write free verse in a colloquial language taken from the noisy bazaars and urine-smelling alleys of Tehran’s poor neighborhoods. Poetry should come from life, Forugh believed – including the ugly, smelly and painful aspects of life. But on 13 February 1967 it came to an abrupt end. Forugh drove her Jeep off the road and died before reaching the hospital. She was only 32 years old, but already heralded as a literary star. The death was on the front page of all the most important newspapers, and several hundred people attended the funeral. ADVERTISEMENT IN THE NEWSPAPER: Here is the front page of the newspaper Ettela’at and a photo from the funeral in 1967 on the right. Photo: Ettela’at / fell in the open In the years that followed, she was hailed as a visionary feminist poet. Forugh’s iconic status lasted until 1979 when the Islamic Revolution turned Iran upside down. FEBRUARY 1, 1979: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Iran after many years in exile. Photo: AP Although the Shah’s Iran was characterized by Western values, it was also a brutal dictatorship with limited political freedom of expression. For many young Iranians, the revolution was therefore a promise of something better. Instead, it ended up as a regime of terror. Tens of thousands of political activists were killed without trial. Inappropriate literature was banned, whether for political or religious reasons. One of the poets on the list of dangerous banned books was Farrokhzad. “I fear the time that has lost its heart,” Forugh once wrote in the 1960s. And: “Gone are the good days, the generous days when the skies were filled with glitter and the branches filled with cherries.” The dangerous poets In Iran, poetry has been a living force for over 800 years. It is said that almost all Iranians have a relationship with poets such as Rumi (13th century) and Hafez (14th century). Poetic images and classical lines of verse are part of the Persian everyday language. In many Iranian homes, the great book of Hafez’s poems lies side by side with the Koran. If you have a problem, you can take out Hafez, open the book to a random page and see if the poem gives you an answer. Even after the Islamic revolution, poetry has been an important part of Iranians’ lives. The Islamic Revolution’s first spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, wrote poetry himself. Today’s leader, Ali Khamenei, wrote poetry as a youth and is said to have considered a career as a poet before choosing theology. LIKES POEMS: Ayatollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei (the leader of the day). There are separate circles where this type of exalted poem with a religious theme can win honor and glory from the regime. The independent poets, on the other hand, live dangerously. In 1994, Iran’s Writers’ Association wrote a letter to the authorities in which 134 writers, poets, translators, researchers and critics defended the right to freedom of expression. The letter led to a wave of arrests and murders. At the top of the list was the poet Mohammad Mokhtari, who was kidnapped in the open street by the regime’s men and later found murdered. KILLED: Mohammad Mokhtari. Photo: Unknown photographer / Wikimedia commons In the years leading up to 1998, there followed a series of similar suspicious deaths and unsolved murders of writers, journalists and others who championed the cause of freedom of expression. The signature list was referred to as a death list. In a BBC podcast about Forugh Farrokhzad’s life, the American-Iranian writer Jasmin Darznik highlights Farrokhzad’s fearlessness and her strong will to rebel against everything that held her down. – Many Iranians probably think that if Forugh had lived through the revolution, she would have been executed because she had not been able to keep quiet. But the voices of popular poets are difficult to silence. A few years after the revolution, Forugh’s poem reappeared. The books circulated in secret. New censored editions appeared. Iranian girls found Forugh’s poems in hidden bookshelves. They read Forugh when they were in love, when they were sad or when they needed strength. And they took the collections of poems to read aloud at her grave. FRESH FLOWERS: Forugh Farrokhzad’s Graveyard. Photo: GTVM92 / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Above the gate of Zahiroddoleh, the old cemetery in Tehran where Forugh Farrokhzad is buried, it is written that a woman can only enter if she comes with her brother or husband. An irony of fate for the burial place of a rebellious feminist. Nevertheless, young women have defied the order and at times gathered in such large numbers around the burial site that the authorities have closed off the possibility of visits. 50 years after his death, Forugh’s poetry still feels close and alive. Half a year ago, after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, the cries of “woman – life – freedom” rang out between the facades of houses in Iranian cities. SEPTEMBER 2022: Protests in Tehran after Mahsa Amini died in police custody. Photo: AFP Tempo, rhythmic and with full force from beating hearts that wanted to decide on their own lives. In protest against the violence that affects women and against the ties that hold them down. Forugh wrote this in 1964: “I have stood on the ground, with my body like a plant stem, sick wind and water and sun to live.” It could have been written in our own time. The power of words Fatemeh Ekhtesari, Iranian free-town writer in Lillehammer, knows the power of words. Ekhtesari fled to Norway in 2017 after being sentenced to eleven and a half years in prison and 99 lashes. IN NORWAY: Fatemeh Ekhtesari. Photo: ERLEND MOE / news The crime? Having written poems that challenged the regime. Ekhtesari believes that all of Iran’s writers and poets who have written truthfully about life throughout the ages are important sources of inspiration for the new rebel generation. – It’s like the poets stand up and say: “Hey guys! You have rights. You deserve a better life.” Fatemeh Ekhtesari compares the poets’ words to small flames that can grow into a fire. She believes poets have that effect on people. Especially on young people. This spring, the demonstrations have calmed down. Going out into the streets has become too dangerous. 500 people lost their lives during the autumn and winter protests. Tens of thousands are imprisoned in brutal conditions. Four people have been executed, and twenty people risk the death penalty. But even if the news picture is no longer characterized by such loud protests, the words continue to work. Words can still be whispered. Words can be remembered. And one of the poets who is still remembered is Forugh Farrokhzad. – If you read her texts, you get to know yourself better. You understand that you cannot continue to live a life others force you to. You become aware of your own value as a human being, says Fatemeh Ekhtesari. The protesters never used Forugh’s words directly. Yet it is hard not to hear the echo of the uncompromising demand for freedom in Forugh Farrokhzad’s words. To My Sister «Sister, rise up after your freedom, why are you quiet? rise up because henceforthyou have to imbibe the blood of tyrannical men.» OCTOBER 26, 2022: Thousands head to Mahsa Amini’s hometown of Sagez, 40 days after she died, to honor her. Photo: AFP / NTB SCANPIX / AFP Norwegian translation of Forugh Farrokhzad by Odveig Klyve. English translation of Forugh Farrokhzad by Sholeh Wolpé. Hello! Do you have thoughts or tips in connection with this matter, or about something else that you think we in the culture department at news should look into? If so, send me an email. The Department of Culture shares new long readings from the cultural field with the readers of news.no every Sunday, you will find them gathered in one place at news Culture. Do you want to hear more about Iran and poetry? Listen to this:
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Wrote about sin, sex and adultery – Culture
