by Zhinia Noorian.
Simin Behbahani (1927-2014) is well known and widely praised, both in Iran and internationally, for her innovations in the classical genre of ghazal (lyric poetry). She used this classical genre because she saw its potential as a vehicle to convey her socio-political passion. Reflecting on her own poetry, Behbahani explained that she used natural, everyday speech to introduce new themes and expressions into the genre, while keeping the overall “geometric shape of the conventional ghazal,” which made her style quite familiar to Iranian readers (Rezvani, 2016, ii. Poetry). This female poet, celebrated as “the sultan of the contemporary ghazal,” used her poetry as a powerful medium for speaking out against oppression by the established authorities (Milani 2008, 7-9). In this brief piece, I focus on “Must Build Again,” one of her lyric poems to evoke the feelings of hope and resistance in her audience.
Simon Behbahani’s Life
Siminbar Khalili was the daughter of Abbas Khalili (1893-1971) and Fakhr-e Ozma Arghun (1898-1966). She later became known as Simin Behbahani, by the name of her first husband, Hasan Behbahani (Rezvani, 2016, i. Life). Behbahani believed that she inherited her literary talent from both her parents. Her mother Arghun was a teacher of French language who also spoke English and Arabic. She wrote stories and poetry, and was actively engaged in social causes, especially women’s education (Behbahani 1996, 11-12). In 1939, Arghun founded the Raghu Women’s Journal (Nama-ye Banovan). Behbahani’s father was also a man of letters. He wrote novels, translated several books, and was the founder of Iqdam, a popular newspaper. Simin’s mother and father divorced when she was three, and then her mother married Adel Khal’atbari. This man was a journalist who befriended prominent men of letters, who influenced Behbahani’s understanding of Persian literature (Rezvani, 2016, i. Life).
Behbahani was expelled from the School of Midwifery, due to being falsely accused of writing a newspaper article that criticized the school. Her dismissal was probably due to her membership in the communist Tudeh (li. Masses) Party (Anderson, 2019). She married Hasan Behbahani in 1947, when she was twenty years old. Then she resumed her education, earned a Bachelor’s degree from Tehran University’s Faculty of Law, and started her official career as a high school teacher in 1951. She and her husband had a daughter and two sons, but they divorced in 1969. Later she married Manuchehr Kushyar and was devastated by his death in 1984. On 19 August 2014, Behbahani passed away in Tehran at the age of 87, and was buried in Behesht-Zahra cemetery (Rezvani, 2016, i. Life).
“Must Build Again”
The poem “Must Build Again” appears in Dasht-i arzhan (Arzhan Plain), a collection of Behbahabi’s lyric poems. It was published in 1983, a few years after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. This poem presents a constellation of closely connected motifs, all referring to the concepts of hope and resistance.
Must build again-You! Off we went,
Although we did not give up till off we went.
You, the youngest, implore justice! May your world be replenished!
May God be the protector! Of this home, off we went.
You are the Christ of tomorrow to bring the dead to life;
We are the Moses of yesterday. With the staff, off we went!
It was all sincerity and faith -God knows-
If we did right or went astray.
Hands, chained; eyes, blind-folded –
Tell where they took us; don’t tell where we went!
Friend-in-arms, we are excusable, although we lagged behind
In the middle of the way which we took with you.
We fell down like stairs. You must rise like a summit!
For we, too, reached the summits before.
We strived, a life-time, like the waves:
Sometimes we receded, sometimes we rose up.
When the cry of truth grew from the throat of the truth-seekers,
Upon hearing the cry, we invited people to join, off we went.
If we didn’t dare a bloody mission,
Letting out such a clarion call, off we went …
May 1982 (Behbahani, 1983, 105-106)
An Interpretation
The title, “Must Build Again” gives a prelude to Behbahani’s narrative in this lyric poem. The title demands that her readers keep their hopes alive—a message that flows through the whole poem. She uses the imperative verb “must,” which is further strengthened with the adverb “again.” Behbahani artfully devises the poem’s structure so that the readers are forced to pause in the middle of each hemistich, preventing them from reading the poem smoothly. It’s as if the poet is trying to depict the situation of people who are panting, out of breath from the effort of coping with a crippling burden of oppression. She is demanding that the devastated society, her audience, take responsibility for rebuilding itself. She calls upon the youngest children of the nation to demand justice and equity, as the gifts that can rebuild “your homeland.”
Behbahani uses iconic imagery from Quranic tales to empower the poem’s message. She alludes to the miracle attributed to Jesus, of bringing Lazarus back to life (Schimmel, 1991, 343-344). The poet sees Iran’s youth as the “Jesus of tomorrow,” who must go beyond saving the nation, and bring the dead back to life. For her, the source of faith and hope is the country’s youth. Then she draws a second allusion from Quranic tales, this time evoking Moses. She refers to Moses’ cane, which he reportedly used to cut the sea apart and save his nation from the tyranny (Quran, 26:63). Through depicting her generation as Moses, Behbahani calls for resistance against oppression, in hope of achieving the impossible.
Repeatedly she urges her audience to never surrender. She is recounting the painful struggles against oppression of her tumultuous past, seeking to convince the readers to take that legacy and pass it on as a gift of hope. Behbahani refers to God as her witness to the sincere efforts that she and her comrades made in opposing the dictatorship of the Pahlavī dynasty (1925-1979). She asks her audience to remember what happened to them, as they were blind-folded and incarcerated. She speaks to the comrades she has lost, lamenting that she was left behind on the path they took together. Then she returns to addressing the youth of her audience, encouraging them to keep their hopes alive and rise to the summits. She presents images of falling and rising, juxtaposing the paradoxical motifs of “steps” and “summits,” rising and receding like waves. She depicts her generation’s reaching the summits of success, which may refer to the downfall of the Pahlavi regime. However, they were then downtrodden like “steps” after the revolution of 1979, many of them killed and incarcerated. She recounts why they joined forces against the tyrannical authority and support “the truth.”
Behbahani closes the poem by acknowledging that she did not reach the elevated station of the “bloody calling” of martyrdom in defense of the “truth.” However, she and those left behind responded to a call to speak the truth. She raised her voice and followed a dream, which may implicitly refer to voicing her resistance by composing poetry.
Sources
Anderson, Karen (2019) Encyclopædia Britannica, s.v. “Simin Behbahani.”
Behbahani, Simin (1991) Dasht-e Arzhan (repr., Tehran: Entesharat-e Zavvar), 105-106. The translation of the poem is mine, and I have done it as literally as possible.
Behbahani, Simin (1996) Ba qalb-e khod ehe kardam?: Gozideh-ye qeseh-ha-o yad-ha. Los Angeles: Sherkat-e ketab, 11-12.
Milani, Farzaneh (2008) “Simin Behbahani: Iran’s National Poet,” Iranian Studies 41, no. 1 (2008), 7-9.
Rezvani, Sa’id (2016) “Behbahani, Simin, i. Life,” and “ii. Poetry.” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, New York: Columbia University Center for Iranian Studies. URLs. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/behbahani-simin-1-life and http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/behbahani-simin-2-poetry
Schimmel, Annemarie (1991) “Christianity vii. Christian Influences in Persian Poetry,” Encyclopædia Iranica, V/5, pp. 342-444, Costa Mesa, Cal.: Mazda.