writing_womans_lives_symposium_paper_book_v2

Her third and final collection shows the lucidity of the poet: "Another Birth" is the experience of a
woman who was reborn and happily reconciled with the world and nature. She finally found her role
in the world and feels herself belonging to the world.
Thematic and formal viewpoint of Forough’s poetry is very modern. Her knowledge of several
European languages allows her to know the most important concepts of Western thought and
literature. When reading the poetry of Forough, we are struck by, for the first time in the modern
Persian poetry, the presence of the more subjective concepts such as space and time, so valued by
the European poets and writers from the early twentieth century. We can find these notions in the
following poem:
He was extended,
Up to infinity,
Beyond the life […]
I saw his heart,
With its wandering magician rhyme,
Resonate in all my heart.
The time flew away. (The Unison)
In this poem, we find the notion of time and space. During the act of love, the real space changes
into a subjective body space: “He was extended/ Up to the infinity”. Being “extended” and absolute,
this subjective space paves the way for the passage of subjective and absolute time: “The time flew
away”, Forough says. This subjective time makes the two lovers eternal.
What distinguishes this poet in Iran is her freedom of speech and honesty in describing the
feminine universe and themes of love, the physical relationship between woman and man, small
erotic details, which broke the traditional taboos. She speaks frankly and openly about the act of love
and reveals small details of a physical relationship. In her poetry, the use of grammatical first person
"I" is like a call to the reader to discover the world of the poet and not to hesitate to enter it and to
believe Forough's experiences and life. Through erotic poems, she insists on the right of the woman
and her freedom to act even in the act of love which indeed breaks traditional taboos. She wants to
overcome male domination that is imposed on women, especially in the most private and secret
aspects of life. Actually, she knows that the first step to get rid of the patriarchal tradition is to
control the temptations and uncontrolled pleasure of the man who is looking at the woman as a tool
for satisfying his sexual desires and thus degrades the dignity of the woman as a human being.
The poetry of Forough is the story of her life including all stages of her life, with all its passions
and feelings. She talks about her husband, her son and his father and others so as to us the
opportunity to know her biography. Indeed, it is new in Persian poetry as Persian classical poets
never talked about their lives in their poetry, and that’s why we know almost nothing of their lives.
In addition, instead of addressing very traditional themes and vocabulary of Persian classical
poetry, speaking of the rose and garden, the nightingale and butterflies, wine and butler and also
using complicated symbols and metaphors, unknown to the people, Forough simply speaks words of
life; words that show the life of a housewife, a mother. She says:
Life is perhaps
a long street through which a woman holding
a basket passes every day. […]
Life is perhaps
that child who is running back home. (Another Birth)
One can find her feminine universe with all its details and all descriptions. The feminine universe
that she draws in her poetry belongs not only to her but to all Iranian women who can find there
their own disappointments, passions, joys and pains. Thus, Forough could be considered as the
spokeswoman of all the women of her time, one who says loudly what other women could not say
because of cultural and social restrictions.
580