Simin Behbahani: Driven by love

This week’s entrancing talk on Simin Behbahani by Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak told of Behbahani’s poetic development as she matured from writing leftist ‘sketches’ and ‘vignettes’ of poverty, prostitutes and inequality – to an iconic breathing of new life into the ghazal form

Karimi-Hakkak spoke of how Simin Behbahani has “outgrown the war between the old [forms of poetry] and the new”. He expertly commented on a selection of her poems. I want here to share one of the poems: ‘One meter seventy’

This was written after a public poetry reading / story telling session following the 1997 election of Khatami.  As Behbahani started to read, her microphone was switched off. When she continued to speak, the curtain of the stage was dropped. She moved to the front of the stage, and kept right on reading. Only when she was physically removed from the stage by ‘security’ men, could she be silenced.

‘One meter seventy’ follows on that event.

Karimi-Hakkak finished by speaking movingly of Behabani as a woman as well as a poet – as a feminist who loved and was beloved by men, and a supporter of the most radical moderation.

If you want to read a little more of Karimi Hakkak’s literary comments, please click here.

My own blog following Behabani’s death – with more poems, and President Obama’s quoting of her – is here.

And if you now – as I did – feel inspired to think more  deeply about the ghazal – a historical commentary is here.

Here below is a literal translation of One meter seventy. If you want a more poetic version, click here.

One meter seventy

 

One meter seventy my words rose up

One meter seventy I am of the poetry of this house

 

One meter seventy, pure and simple

Tender spirit of love poetry, patient figure of femininity

 

My soul seems soiled? You are seeing yourself

I am your mirror, will shatter once you cast a stone

 

I am an ancient willow, cast a full shadow once I arise

Seated on good earth, I am a fine carpet, a meadow of green grass

 

Under my scarf a single brain filled with fears of the patrol

Inside my dress a heart full of passions, poems of desire

 

Do not axe me at the root, it would be such a shame

In your parched land, I am the greenery, the deep-rooted oak

 

What have I done to make you my foe, but speak the truth

No response to your foul words, not even a curse

 

I imagine I have brought you forth, coarse, uncaring, uncouth

I may abandon you, but cannot stop loving you

 

I imagine I have brought you forth, snakes that bite me

What can I do with fruits of my own body and soul?

 

I have lived and lingered in this spot for seventy years

So I will have my plot, my grave, my one meter seventy