Seven Valleys of Love - Collection of Works from Iranian Female Poets
By Kamangir • May 19th, 2008 • Category: Features, Iran, Lead Story, Women
In her newest book, Seven Valleys of Love, Sheema Kalbasi looks at the works of Iranian female poets from Middle Ages Persia to present day Iran. Sheema is fluent in both Persian and English, to the extent that she does fine writing in both languages. When asked by the Persian Radio Farda why she focused on female poets, she replied, “as opposed to eight thousand male poets, only four hundred female poets are mentioned in our history. Thus, it is necessary to move on from Saadi, Khayam, Roumi, and Hafez and add material like this to the curriculum inside Iran and outside”.
Those Days
Those days
Poetry
Was my room
And wherever I felt unsafe
I gravitated into its eternal sanctuary.These days
There aren’t any rooms
That can harbor me against the crowd
and behind every window
inside and outside every room
a two-faced clown sneers.Fereshteh Sari (more samples from the book )
Sheema writes,
I started the translation of these poems after losing my mother to breast cancer. I chose to work through my grieving period.
The book can be purchased online on Amazon. Some donations will proceed to a breast cancer research center in Connecticut.
Posted by Kamangir
Author's email address: arash@kamangir.net | All posts by Kamangir
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I finished reading it…wonderful collection … and one can really hear the cry of Iranian women through out the history. The underlining of all poems is sadness and loneliness.
Great work has gone into this work, I admire Sheema for what she stands for. Sheema is unique among Iranian bloggers and thinkers. I hope your readers will buy her book…I also had a post on my blog on her book.