Woman, Life, Freedom: Poems for the Iranian Revolution
Bänoo Zan and Cy Strom, Editors
Guernica Editions, 2025
Reviewed by Jeannine M. Pitas
On September 16, 2022, 22-year-old Mahsa “Jina” Amini, a Kurdish minority in Iran, was beaten to death by the Islamic Republic’s morality police, allegedly for improperly wearing the hijab. This incident led to an eruption of the biggest mass protests the nation has seen since 2009, with thousands of people marching and many women removing the hijab and/or cutting their hair in public. Hundreds of protesters have been killed. The movement, which is still ongoing, has coalesced under the banner of “Woman, Life, Freedom,” a slogan that has endured from Kurdish feminist movements.
In the days following Amini’s death, Bänoo Zan, an Iranian poet who migrated to Canada in 2010, was inspired to respond. After securing the support of Cy Strom as co-editor, she approached Guernica Editions, with whom she has published her own poetry book Songs of Exile, and proposed an international anthology dedicated to the ongoing Women, Life, Freedom movement. She then put out a call for poets from all over the world who might, in the words of Strom, “uncover the dimensions of the Iranian revolution and the meaning it has for the people of Iran and the whole world.”
Two and a half years later, we see the result: a transnational, multicultural, multigenerational anthology of poems offering multiple perspectives on the ongoing revolution. Zan and Strom read the entries blindly, with no identifying information from the authors; the result is a truly diverse anthology with forty contributors of numerous geographic and cultural identities writing in varied styles. Their poems are arranged thematically in five sections: Beginnings, Defiance, Struggle, Witness, and Futures.
The first section, Beginnings, explores the social, cultural, and material conditions in Iran that have led to Amini’s murder, the deaths of other women at the hands of the states, and the ongoing mass protests. In the book’s first poem, “sclera,” writer Anindita Mukherjee states, “none of them / resemble their faces – / Black veil of veils ”. In a poem called “Buzz,” Nilou Doust – a twenty-one-year-old university student who migrated to Canada ten years ago – recalls her own childhood encounters with the morality police: “‘Mom, they told me I need to wear a hijab to be a big girl.’ / I’m nine years old when they tell me that my body / is too enticing […] “I’m eighteen years old. / Where I live now, the skies are blue, / and my legs and arms are tanned and scarred”.
The next section, Defiance, pays tribute to how Iranian women and their male allies have resisted the regime and its demands. “Make sure the color is red, the color of eliminated families,” states Princeton University student Dana Serea in a poem entitled “The Rug ”. “Twist in the memories of the disappeared, / the victims erased by the government. / Tie in the knots of the events / and remember the thousands of lives”. In a similar vein, nonfiction writer Siavash Saadlou states, “The strands / of your hair become the biggest thorn in / the side of this regime ravenous for / rooting out all the young voices, failing / to fathom that you can’t burn women made of fire”.
The tone changes in the third section, Struggle, where we see the harsh realities of the regime’s cruelty. In “Homeland,” Saadlou pays tribute to Kian Pirfalak, a nine-year-old boy killed by security forces in November 2022 as part of the crackdown on the Mahsa Amini protests. In the chilling poem “Don’t Tell Mom,” Ari Honarvar memorializes the death of twenty-two-year-old protester Mohammad Mehdi Karami, who called his father from prison to inform him that he’d been sentenced to death: “But Dad / don’t tell her about the swinging noose searching for a neck / and what happens tomorrow at dawn / please don’t tell Mom ”.
The fourth section, Witness, pays tribute to the local and global solidarity with people fighting for women’s equality in Iran and everywhere. Witnesses near and far are united by a common cause. “I’m awed / by that brave Kurdish woman who flew / in the face of the guard / and later posted to the world: / You aimed at my eyes, but my heart is still beating” writes Toronto-based poet and playwright Donna Langevin. In a poignant contrast to the book’s first poem about women’s faces erased behind veils, Parastu Kamangir, a Persian pen name for Malaysian writer Chang Shih Yen, has adapted the traditional poetic form of the ghazal to name several of the revolution’s victims, repeating the refrain “don’t forget me” throughout the poem.
In the final section, “Futures,” poets meditate on a possible outcome for the revolution, a future without autocracy and oppression. While some of these poems are battle cries, most are quieter, gentler, and more ambivalent. There is much uncertainty in what the future may bring. In “When the World Moved On Without Me,” New York-based Rahil Najafabadi contemplates her position of exile and disconnection from home, but also the desire to begin something new :
[…] I think of all the photographs of beautiful
cafes I deleted from my phone because there was no more
space. Instead, I store thirst traps I’ve never uploaded,
more bridges that take me farther from home. I delete
those too, and I illegally download folk songs from before
I was born. Somehow it moves me so much I feel tired
enough to drift. The world moved on without me,
from a revolution I wasn’t here to stop. How do I start
a new one, without bringing new curses to a woman’s home ?
In the same section, Persian-Filipina-Canadian poet Azita Sadri states, “I start to wonder whose weapon really is this weaponized woman’s hair/ Whether its thickness can be braided into ropes that we can climb higher than they can see. / Whether each strand can turn into the strings of a harp, forming a / choir that sings, / Zan, zendegi, azadi”. She then goes on to state that she is not sure: “Maybe it is too dangerous for us to be free,” she states. Weariness, uncertainty, and self-doubt have their place in this collection alongside hope, anger, and conviction.
One feature that stands out in this passionately curated collection is the wide range of poetic styles, perspectives, and emotional expressions, as well as a multiplicity of origins among the poets. This focus on diversity comes as no surprise given both editors’ ethos of bridge-building and solidarity. Bänoo Zan is the founder of the most diverse reading series in Canada, Shab-e She’r, which has run consistently since 2012. Her firm belief in the power of poetry to cross borders and speak the truth boldly is evident in her approach to this collection, which invited contributors from around the world and followed a blind review process. The result is poetry from close up and far away. Like a camera panning in and out, this collection explores the Woman, Life, Freedom movement from a wide range of angles.
A major part of Zan and Strom’s ethos is that oppression anywhere is oppression everywhere. In her afterword to the book, Zan quotes Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi: “When the mirror reveals your image in truth, / break yourself. Don’t break the mirror”. Zan, an immigrant to Canada from Iran, is unwavering in her belief that people of all cultures, nationalities, and religions – including those who face oppression – must reckon with the ways they themselves oppress others and take responsibility for their actions, rather than blaming an outside enemy. At a time when so many people are focused on blaming and scapegoating others, this focus on self-critique is a sobering and welcome message.
When asked what poetry can do for a revolution, co-editor Strom affirms the power of empathy and community: “We have seen that this anthology is starting to bring together a community of creators and readers whose support for this revolution goes beyond the borders of Iran – because this feminist revolution is a beacon for the human race.”. As despair threatens to take hold in many parts of the world, this book stands as a sign of much-needed hope.
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Jeannine M. Pitas is a teacher, writer, Spanish-English literary translator, and editor living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, where she teaches at Saint Vincent College. She holds a doctorate in comparative literature from University of Toronto and visits Canada as often as she can afford. Her most recent collection of poetry, Or/And, was published by Paraclete Press in 2023.