Simin Behbahani: Iran's National Poet

Though Simin Behbahani's poems differ in their command of language, versatility of themes, and originality of images, they are unified from beginning to end by common traits. This poet has consistently been an advocate of individual rights, regardless of gender, class, religion, political affiliation, or ethnicity. She has transformed a conventional and mainly masculine poetic form—the ghazal. With her skillful mastery of poetic devices and techniques, she has integrated a classical genre with a modern vision, blending the old and the new, the masculine and the feminine. She has brought together the discourses of modernity and tradition, which, rather than competing in her work, complement, restructure and reconstruct each other. Hers is high art with popular appeal. This is all the more remarkable because Behbahani's adherence to the prosodic rules of the classical ghazal, her multifaceted outlook, her repeated allusions to prophets, philosophers, writers, literary characters, make great demands on her readers.