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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Iran slaps travel ban on 82 year-old poetess |
| 2010-03-09 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] Iran's most celebrated living poetess Simin Behbahani faced a travel ban on Monday after being prevented from leaving for France for International Women's Day ceremonies, an opposition website said. Behbahani, 82, is also a feminist advocating better rights for Iranian women who face several inequalities under the Sharia-based law in place in the Islamic republic since its 1979 revolution. Officials confiscated Behbahani's passport at Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport Monday morning as she was set to leave and told her to follow up the matter through the revolutionary court, Keleme.com said. "Paris municipality had invited me for March 8 and I had prepared a text about feminism and a poem about women which I was going to read at the ceremony and return on Wednesday," Behbahani was quoted as saying. "After I crossed customs and my passport was stamped, two officials called me, took my passport away, kept me till 5 a.m. (0130 GMT) and asked questions," she said. The octogenarian poet is close to Iran's Nobel peace prize winner and human rights campaigner Shirin Ebadi -- both condemning the Islamic republic's treatment of women as discriminatory. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #6 Wow. Thanks grom. And good point TW: I am still trying to dig up an old english book of mine in which the translator of a Moliere play was able to translate it and keep the rhyming couplet style. I read the play in French, and was astounded at how good the translation was. Poets and Musicians should share a primordial dislike of Islam: A poetess was murdered on orders from Mohammed because her poems and songs were more effective at pointing out his flaws and dangerousness than anything the men said. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2010-03-09 12:31 |
| #5 Presumably that's a translation. Translating poetry is exceedingly hard to do well, as anyone who had to read one of the many bad translations of the Iliad or anything by Aeschylus can attest -- doubly good find, g(r)omgoru. :-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-03-09 11:59 |
| #4 De Nada |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2010-03-09 11:39 |
| #3 Which is, I must say, a damned good poem. Thanks for finding it grom. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2010-03-09 07:58 |
| #2 The full poem: GRACEFULLY SHE APPROACHED Gracefully she approached, in a dress of bright blue silk; With an olive branch in her hand, and many tales of sorrows in her eyes. Running to her, I greeted her, and took her hand in mine: Pulses could still be felt in her veins; warm was still her body with life. "But you are dead, mother", I said; "Oh, many years ago you died!" Neither of embalmment she smelled, Nor in a shroud was she wrapped. I gave a glance at the olive branch; she held it out to me, And said with a smile, "It is the sign of peace; take it." I took it from her and said, "Yes, it is the sign of...", when My voice and peace were broken by the violent arrival of a horseman. He carried a dagger under his tunic with which he shaped the olive branch Into a rod and looking at it he said to himself: "Not too bad a cane for punishing the sinners!" A real image of a hellish pain! Then, to hide the rod, He opened his saddlebag. in there, O God! I saw a dead dove, with a string tied round its broken neck. My mother walked away with anger and sorrow; my eyes followed her; Like the mourners she wore a dress of black silk. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2010-03-09 07:57 |
| #1 GRACEFULLY SHE APPROACHED Gracefully she approached, in a dress of bright blue silk; With an olive branch in her hand, and many tales of sorrows in her eyes. Running to her, I greeted her, and took her hand in mine: Pulses could still be felt in her veins; warm was still her body with life. "But you are dead, mother", I said; "Oh, many years ago you died!" Neither of embalmment she smelled, Nor in a shroud was she wrapped. I gave a glance at the olive branch; she held it out to me, And said with a smile, "It is the sign of peace; take it." I took it from her and said, "Yes, it is the sign of...", when My voice and peace were broken by the violent arrival of a horseman. He carried a dagger under his tunic with which he shaped the olive branch Into a rod and looking at it he said to himself: "Not too bad a cane for punishing the sinners!" |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2010-03-09 02:30 |