A virtual conversation, inspired by the work of and legacy of one of Iran’s outstanding cultural figures of the 20th century, Forugh Farrokhzad, featuring Sholeh Wolpé, Jasmin Darznik and Shabnam Piryaei, with emcee Persis Karim, will take place Thursday, December 3, at 4:00pm Pacific time. It is co-presented by The Poetry Center at SFSU and the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies and supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
“At a time when literature and the arts, and just about everything else in Iran were dominated by men, when very few women were respected as poets, a young woman by the name of Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-1967) began writing and publishing poems that radiated with sensuality, pushing the boundaries of what could be uttered or put on paper by women,” Wolpé said.
American poet and scholar Alicia Ostriker writes that Forugh in her poems “is either feverishly alive or hopelessly dead. But part of her immediacy is that she always writes as if she were speaking—to herself, or a lover, or the reader. Perhaps to all three at once. “It’s the flowers’ bloodstained history that has committed me to life,” she declares, “the flowers’ bloodstained history, you hear?” It is no wonder that her work was simultaneously beloved and scandalous.”
Sholeh Wolpé is an Iranian-born poet, writer and playwright. UCLA’s inaugural Writer-in-Residence in 2018, Wolpé is the recipient of the 2014 PEN/Heim, 2013 Midwest Book Award, 2010 Lois Roth Persian Translation prize as well as artist fellowships and residencies in the U.S., Mexico, Spain, Australia and Switzerland. Her literary work includes five collections of poetry, several plays, four books of translations, and three anthologies. She travels internationally as a performing poet, writer and public speaker and has performed her literary work with world-renowned musicians nationally and internationally. Translator of
Sin: Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad (University of Arkansas Press, 2010), Wolpé is the Writer-in-Residence at UC Irvine and lives in Los Angeles.
For more information: Legacy of Forugh Farrokhzad: with Sholeh Wolpé, Jasmin Darznik, and Shabnam Piryaei—poetry, fiction, film, and conversation
