Sholeh Wolp\u00e9, Farrokhzad\u2019s translator, <\/span>says her \u201c<\/span>poetry was the poetry of protest \u2014 protest through revelation \u2014 revelation of the taboo: the innermost world of women, their intimate secrets and desires, their sorrows, longings, aspirations and at times even their articulation through silence.\u201d<\/span><\/a> Farrokhzad\u2019s poetry is known for its sensuality, boldness, exploration of female identity, and candid expressions of personal and political issues. Her poetry tackled taboo topics such as love, desire, and the struggles of women in Iran\u2019s patriarchal society. Her lover, Ebrahim Golestan, the renowned Iranian filmmaker and intellectual, shared in an interview how much he admired Farrokhzad\u2019s fearlessness in a society that continually castigated her. He believed the greatest influence on her work was Farrokhzad herself; her own experiences and desire for freedom and self-expression. As she wrote in a letter to him:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I want to reach the heart of the earth. My love lies in there, a place where seedlings turn green and roots meet one another and creation continues even in disintegration. I think it has always been this way \u2014 in birth and then in death. I think my body is a temporary form. I want to reach its essence. I want to hang my heart like a ripe fruit on every branch of every tree.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I first became interested in \u201cvoice\u201d through encounters with silence: the absence of voices, those forgotten, deliberately excluded or erased. A couple of years ago, as I compiled an anthology of menstruation experiences, I noticed which voices were missing from the mainstream discourse, particularly those marginalized by politics, poverty, occupation, religion or social status. I saw more clearly which voices were privileged, ignored or shouted down. This led me to search out those voices which were muted either from fear, shame or lack of confidence, or oppressed by cultural norms. As I discovered them, I began to understand how integral voice is to identity, freedom, and agency. One instance was when I was interviewing homeless women outside a Sufi shrine in Multan, Pakistan. I realized they were reluctant to speak to me because we were being watched by a group of men whom they presumably feared. Equally, I noted how transmen were unwilling to speak about their menstruation experiences because they were afraid of being ostracized or losing their jobs. The more I researched, the better I understood how patriarchy, religion, and politics had created and propagated myths of shame around periods, and stigmatized them as a way to control womens\u2019 bodies and choices. Over time, my reflection on voice prompted me to revisit Farrokhzad\u2019s poetry. Her life and work offered comfort and a framework to understand my own struggles with bringing voices to the fore and silencing forces in my life.<\/span><\/p>\n Farrokhzad\u2019s poetic journey spans from personal entrapment to profound liberation. Her evolution is reflected in her poems written a decade apart, \u201cThe Captive\u201d (1955) and \u201cOnly Voice Remains\u201d (1966), where the shift from the voice of a <\/span>\u201ccaptive bird<\/span><\/i>\u201d to a triumphant, defiant <\/span>\u201cvoice\u201d<\/span><\/i> marks a transition from suffocation to freedom. The contrast between these two poems provides insight into Farrokhzad\u2019s inner life \u2014 her journey from the oppressive confines of Iranian society to a renewed understanding of her own agency and spiritual liberation. In some ways, it helped me understand my own trajectory in appreciating the necessity of using one\u2019s voice for resistance, lowering it for self-preservation, and rediscovering its resilience after a period in the tunnel of silence.<\/span><\/p>\n In \u201cThe Captive,\u201d Farrokhzad presents a vivid portrayal of imprisonment, both personal and political.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I want you, yet I know that never\u00a0<\/span> Here Farrokhzad uses imagery to create an atmosphere of isolation and tension where desires are irreconcilable with reality. The speaker in this poem likens herself to a \u201c<\/span>captive bird,\u201d<\/span><\/i> separated from the expansive sky, with a heart like a \u201c<\/span>candle which illumines ruins\u201d<\/span><\/i> and confined behind <\/span>\u201ccold and dark bars.\u201d<\/span><\/i> This stark image of imprisonment, of longing for flight but knowing its impossibility, mirrors Farrokhzad\u2019s own struggles against the claustrophobia of her marriage and Iranian society. Yet, even within the cage, the speaker finds ways to imagine freedom, to dream of escape. In the poem Farrokhzad switches from addressing the reader, her lover, and herself. She yearns to <\/span>\u201cspread my wings in your direction,\u201d<\/span><\/i> visualizing a future beyond the prison possibly with her lover. However, she also recognizes the limitations imposed by her reality and her own lack of energy: <\/span>\u201ceven if the jailer would wish it, no breath or breeze remains for my flight.\u201d<\/span><\/i> The yearning for independence is palpable, but overshadowed by the speaker\u2019s own pessimism about her capability, <\/span>\u201cno breath or breeze remains,\u201d<\/span><\/i> alongside the stark realization that escape is out of the question. The poem ends on a note of resignation, with an acceptance that the probability of release is low and if she did, she would destroy \u201c<\/span>the nest.\u201d<\/span><\/i> The speaker is referring to the idea that she is bound by the expectations of patriarchal norms in Iranian society but also by her own inability to act, despite her intense longing for emancipation.<\/span><\/p>\n This feeling of entrapment resonated with me shortly after publishing <\/span>Period Matters: Menstruation in South Asia (Pan Macmillan, 2022)<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/a> As I sought to amplify the voices of homeless or incarcerated women, those working in factories, sweeping streets and forest dwellers, trans people, and women living in remote geographical areas, I began to appreciate how women\u2019s bodies were inescapably political. Menstruation was a taboo subject, and through the poems, essays, art, stories and interviews presented in the book, I tried to show how the menstruation experience could be better understood through an intersectional lens. Aside from being a time of rest and healing, menstruation could also be a time of female solidarity and regeneration as practiced by the Kalash women in Northern Chitral, or one with immense creative and artistic potential. For instance, the book showcased menstrual art or menstrala. These included images of embroidery and needle work on underpants, visuals of murals in a village in India depicting menstruation in a positive light, and the cover of <\/span>Period Matters<\/span><\/i> which included a detail from a painting made with menstrual blood. The book also included a QR code to a dance where the dancer used a <\/span>classical raga and gestural movements to reflect the lunar rhythms of her body during menstruation. <\/span><\/a>However, the book was met with hostility by Islamic right-wing fundamentalists in Pakistan who have narrow ideas about women\u2019s autonomy and rights, and keep them subjugated. The fundamentalists posted a video on YouTube circulating conspiracy theories about the anthology and linking it to anti-Islamic ideas such as those in Salman Rushdie\u2019s <\/span>The Satanic Verses, <\/span><\/i>and asked for a fatwa on me<\/span>. <\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span>In the days that followed, I received death threats, was banned from attending literary and social events in Lahore, and warned not to enter Pakistan. I was forced to go into hiding<\/span><\/a>, and close my social media accounts. During those months I was furious that my life was being controlled by unknown men with beards, but also quite frightened by the backlash. I reflected on the nature of silence and voice. Was I, too, becoming like the captive bird? Should I stop? Was my desire to speak out worth the immense personal cost? In that silence, I grappled with these questions, trying to navigate the tension between self-expression and self-preservation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe Captive\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n
\n<\/span>can I embrace you to my heart’s content.<\/span>
\n<\/span>you are that clear and bright sky.<\/span>
\n<\/span>I, in this corner of the cage, am a captive bird.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>From behind the cold and dark bars<\/span>
\n<\/span>directing toward you my rueful look of astonishment,<\/span>
\n<\/span>I am thinking that a hand might come<\/span>
\n<\/span>and I might suddenly spread my wings in your direction.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>I am thinking that in a moment of neglect<\/span>
\n<\/span>I might fly from this silent prison,<\/span>
\n<\/span>laugh in the eyes of the man who is my jailer<\/span>
\n<\/span>and beside you begin life anew.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>I am thinking these things, yet I know<\/span>
\n<\/span>that I can not, dare not leave this prison.<\/span>
\n<\/span>even if the jailer would wish it,<\/span>
\n<\/span>no breath or breeze remains for my flight.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>From behind the bars, every bright morning<\/span>
\n<\/span>the look of a child smile in my face;<\/span>
\n<\/span>when I begin a song of joy,<\/span>
\n<\/span>his lips come toward me with a kiss.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>O sky, if I want one day<\/span>
\n<\/span>to fly from this silent prison,<\/span>
\n<\/span>what shall I say to the weeping child’s eyes:<\/span>
\n<\/span>forget about me, for I am captive bird?<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>I am that candle which illumines a ruin<\/span>
\n<\/span>with the burning of her heart.<\/span>
\n<\/span>If I want to choose silent darkness,<\/span>
\n<\/span>I will bring a nest to ruin.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Sin](\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Sin-Poems-of-Forugh-Farrokhzad-Sholeh-Wolpe.jpg\")
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