Tahereh Saffarzadeh

Tahereh Saffarzadeh was born in Sirjan, Kerman Province, Iran in 1936. She was a researcher, translator, university professor, and finally an exceptionally innovative and modernist poet in contemporary Iranian poetry. The vicissitudes of her academic life began from studying in American universities and concluded to research and starting the translation ward in Iran. She was a poet who preferred to nurture her homeland’s offspring over achieving fame abroad. This “female Muslim scholar’s” collection of poetry is a blend of modernism and deep Islamic-humanitarian roots.

 

Without a doubt, none among her contemporaries composing modern religious blank verse have been so verbally and contextually elevated, even to this day. In her “Fifth Journey” to her “Meeting with his morning,” Saffarzadeh utilized her treasury of Islamic and Quranic research and her acquaintance with the language of poetry. Thus, she offered something to the literary society that even years later, similar works are not as acceptable as they should be due to their lack of mastery over one of the two mentioned elements (Islam and the Quran). Saffarzadeh taught methods of accurate literary translation and literary criticism for the first time in the universities of Iran. During her leisure time, she worked on the translation of the Holy Quran. Saffarzadeh linked modern world literature with modern religious literature and presented an Islamic and revolutionary definition of poetry. Tahereh Saffarzadeh passed away in Tehran in October of 2008.

 

“Read, read aloud

In the morning this innocent chant

The pure sound of Adhan is coming

When the pure sound of Adhan comes

The heart becomes present

The heart is present

And takes its share

Of “being warm”

From the light of this boundless sacred message

From the heart of this vocal pillar of meaning”

 

“I am always awaiting you

Without sitting stagnant

I am always awaiting you

As I am

Always on the way

Always on the move

Always in confrontation

You like the moon

Star

Sun

Are always there

And are shining from the full moon

And you will arrive from the Ka’bah

And you will open the Dhulfiqar

And close-up oppression

I am always awaiting you

Oh, promised justice.

This alley

This street

This history

Has a line of awaiting you

And is tired

You are watching

You know

Reappear

Reappear that I am awaiting you

Reappear that I am awaiting you”

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