A Cup of Sin: Selected Poems

by Simin Behbahani, Farzaneh Milani (Editor), Kaveh Safa (Editor), Farzaneh Milani (Translator), Kaveh Safa (Translator)

Overview

Simin Behbahani's collection contains some of the most formative work of twentieth-century Persian literature. Written over almost a half-century, much of her poetry reflects the traumatic experiences that have shaped Iranian history: revolution and war. Behbahani balances artful inquiry and shocking realism in both her language and imagery to probe the depths of political, cultural, and moral oppression. In the traditional verse of the ghazal, she improvises with meter to echo and provide new interpretations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815611622
Publisher:	Syracuse University Press
Publication date:	08/15/2023
Series:	Middle East Literature In Translation
Pages:	210
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.48(d)

About the Author

Simin Behbahani (1927-2014) was a celebrated poet, lyricist, and activist. She received the Simon de Beauvoir Prize for Women's Freedom in 2009 and was nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Farzaneh Milani is professor of Persian literature and studies in women and gender at the University of Virginia. She is the author of Veils and Words: The Emerging Voice of Iranian Women Writers and Words, Not Swords: Iranian Women Writers and the Freedom of Movement. Kaveh Safa has taught courses in anthropology and Persian at the Universities of Virginia and Chicago.

Table of Contents

Preface, Michael Beard Acknowledgements We Await the Golden Dawn, Simin Behbahani The Poems HIs Master's Voice A Thousand Golden Butterflies Oh, I Made Love! The Child Trailed Behind I Gave My Face to the Scalpel I Am So Full of Light I'm an Old Sanctuary Has the Game Ended? A State Beyond Words Whirl, Whirl, My Friend I Write, I Cross Out If the Snake Is Domestic The Perfume of Coffee and Thoughts of You Orange-tressed Sun Caduceus Bring Me the Palette Footsteps Two Rows of Acacia Leaves Necklace Fossil Our Tears Are Sweet I Sing in Your Voice The Ants' Leftover A Man with a Missing Leg It's the End of the Line From the Street (6) A Lily, Like a Smoke Ring Heart, You Are So Restless The Windows Are Closed You Won't Believe It In My Necessary Silence "I Swear on the Fig, I Swear on the Olive..." Glass-like Snow Twelve Fountains of Blood And Behold Raining Death Thump, Thump, Thump, Echoed the Drum Morse When the Hand of Darkness Thorned Fruit From the Street (3) From the Street (1) It Was the Pulse Flying The World is Shaped Like a Sphere Mind: Smoke Rings Flog! It's Time to Mow the Flowers Ears, Ears of Gold A Bat or Some Other Creature You Said, It's Only Grapes I Used to Tell You Must Write Something My Country, I Will Build You Again Sounds of Blossoms My Heart is Heavy Friend Song (5) Song (4) Song (3) Gypsiesque (15) Gypsiesque (13) Gypsiesque (14) Gypsiesque (1) Tick Tock, Tick Tock Love Came So Red You Leave, I'll Stay Dry, Lifeless, Dry O Child of Today Time, It Is Dream Time Barren Desert Doubts, Doubts, Doubts Can You Really Fly? I Can't Look What a Cold and Somber Silence So Long in This Old Land I Sell Souls Metamorphosis O Box Within Box Laws of Lead I Want a Cup of Sin Don't Read The Dead Are Silent Workshop Lead Insulation Lead Dust Apples, Crimson Lanterns Maybe It Is the Messiah Mind Blister Dialogue Limestone Branches "Ours"-An Image Opium of False Promises My Little World The Last Leaf The Rabbit's Garnet Eyes Green Blood Ignorance Wine of Light Rival Nightmare Tombstone Inheritance Dead Man's Tooth The Prostitute's Song Afterword Translating Simin Behbahani, Kaveh Safa

Editorial Reviews

Simin is proof that Scheherazade is among us, reincarnated in millions of us, Muslim women, sculpting the world we want simply by weaving words. Scheherazade changed the violent king by feeding him soft words. She did not shout, she just murmured stories in the nights.

author of Dreams of Trespass Fatima Mernissi

Behbahani . . . blends Eastern and Western cultures, leaps from one time period to another, switches back and forth from masculine forms, and imbues the lines with multiple layers of meaning.

The Miami Herald

The translation is remarkable for its craftiness and fluency. . . . The poems are sure to impress the American reader with their honesty, technical precision, rhythmic quality, and compassionate concern for the underdog.

World Literature Today

Behbahani . . . blends Eastern and Western cultures, leaps from one time period to another, switches back and forth from masculine forms, and imbues the lines with multiple layers of meaning.-- "The Miami Herald"

Simin is proof that Scheherazade is among us, reincarnated in millions of us, Muslim women, sculpting the world we want simply by weaving words. Scheherazade changed the violent king by feeding him soft words. She did not shout, she just murmured stories in the nights.-- "Fatima Mernissi, author of Dreams of Trespass"

The translation is remarkable for its craftiness and fluency. . . . The poems are sure to impress the American reader with their honesty, technical precision, rhythmic quality, and compassionate concern for the underdog.-- "World Literature Today"

From the Publisher

The Sultan of today's ghazals is indeed Simin Behbahani.

Houshang Golshiri

Simin Behbahani's ghazals are the echoes of contemporary Iranian women's voices, demanding their share of love's beauty, universal justice, and individual freedom.

writer and literary critic Javad Mojabi

Simin is living proof that Scheherazade is among us, reincarnated in millions of us, Muslim women, sculpting the world we want simply by weaving words. Scheherazade changed the violent king by feeding him soft words. She did not shout, she just murmured stories in the nights. How can violent weak policemen resist the ancestral voice of a poetess like Simin declaring softly: Gaze in my eyes at consciousness flourishing like a garden. Hear a world of awakenings dormant in my words. Hear the world awakening in my words.

Fatima Mernissi