If there is one single poetry book to read over and over again this year, it will be Sin by the less-known Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad, excellently translated into English by Sholeh Wolpé, a poet herself.
It´s very difficult to find quality modern and contemporary poetry in flawless English translation. Farrokhzad is one example, altogether with Shamloo or Sohrab Sepehri. Persian poetry sounds, indeed, much better in the original language with the special inflections of the language, but translating them to the non-Persian poetry reader is an act of justice for the beauty of their verse. Especially when, as in the case of Farrokhzad, they are on the black list of the current rulers of Iran. Her brother, the gay entertainer Fereydoon Farrokhzad, was murdered in Germany part of chain murders ordained by the Islamic Republic in 1992. Her sister Pooran Farrokhzad was the author of the first women encyclopedia in Iran.
Farrokhzad had a short yet creatively rich life - she died in a car accident in her early 30s - being is compared with the young rebelious women of universal poetry like Silvia Plath, Anna Akhmatova, Maria Tsvetaeva or Dahlia Ravikovich. Also a film director, she had to fight against the conservative realm of her everyday life and strict family environment. Her child was taken away and she divorced, and was interned in mental institutions where, among others, she went through electric shocks treatments.
Her first collection of poems Asir (Captive) was published in 1955. Other volumes and poems followed, published by literary reviews and edition houses. Her openness about intimacy and sexual encounters was new for the public and often she was accused of irreverence. What I´ve discovered myself while reading Sin - which is a selected collection of poems from previous volumes, including the postumous Let Us Believe in the Dawn of the Cold Season - is the complexity of feelings she finelly yet firmly is relating to and about. Sometimes, the words make an arch in the skies like the fluidious characters of Chagall and you feel yourself within the realm of feelings. This approach of full intimacy and declared love was maybe not comfortable to the Persian culture, especially at the time she created as it is not now. The Western reader, familiar with outbursts of feelings and declarations of love, will be overwhelmed too though, as the feelings expressed in Farrokhzad poetry are genuine and definitive. It´s not encounter it is love.
I don´t read too much poetry in translation, but the one provided by Sholeh Wolpé does not sound like a translation. It flows original and flawless and it is such a pleasure for the brain to be able to read this poetry.
´Happy, because we love
Heartsick, because love is a curse´.
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