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Pistachios, Camels and Cement Blocks: The Familiar and the Shock of the New in Simin Behbahani's Ghazals
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
Extract
The five poems below, as will be evident to the reader, are as “contemporary” as any poems in Persian, at least thematically. With shocking clarity, they are “about” traumatic experiences that have shaped recent Iranian history: revolution and war.
They are all the more shocking in this respect: for their choice of language and imagery. Simin Behbahani resists the penchant that remains, even in Modern Persian poetry (whether by choice, habit, or force of circumstance), for oblique and symbolic expression—whereby “skewered nightingales” stand for silenced or censored poets, “dogs giving up their freedom for shelter and a piece of bone” connote political and moral compromise, and “dark and stormy nights” and other meteorological signs serve as barometers for political, moral, and cultural oppression.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Iranian Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 3-4: Selections from the Literature of Iran, 1977-1997 , Summer Fall 1997 , pp. 295 - 300
- Copyright
- Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1997
References
1. In Elahi, Sadr al-Din, “Metrical Innovation in Persian Poetry: A Written Interview with Simin Behbahani,” Iranshenasi 9, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 124–25Google Scholar.
2. Fesharaki, Mohammad, “From Khalil to Simin,” Nimeh-ye digar 2, no. 1 (Autumn 1993): 67–69Google Scholar.
3. Behbahani, Simin, “Awaiting a Golden Dawn,” Nimeh-ye digar 2, no. 1 (Autumn 1993): 175Google Scholar.
* The historical setting of this poem is the war with Iraq, which produced over half a million Iranian casualties. For an exegesis of this poem, see Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, “The War's Harshness and the Soul's Impatience: Eye to Eye with the One-Legged Man,” Nimeh-ye digar 2, no. 1 (1993): 83–113.