Preface
It is hard to imagine a more consequential body of poetry than that which a skilled craftsperson might produce from within the confines of a prison cell. And, without doubt, the poems of Mahvash Sabet speak more powerfully than any other form of advocacy could ever hope to of the anguish suffered as well as the victories won in the course of an unjust imprisonment.
In A Tale of Love, her second volume of poems, Mahvash Sabet, a Bahá’í imprisoned for practising her faith in the Islamic Republic of Iran, bears witness to the horrors and hard-won triumphs of life in an Iranian prison, where she has been forced to work out her own salvation in the most solitary way: by setting down her thoughts and experiences in poetry.
If the purpose of a poetry of witness is to tell the truth about some of the most difficult experiences human beings have had to endure, and to tell that truth in a language muscular and agile enough to carry the full weight of its significance, then these poems have succeeded admirably. Admittedly, the truth conveyed by such poetry can be hard to read, for it is a dark truth, one that lives in the shadows generated when individual lives collide with those legendary forces of darkness responsible for the cruelties to which so many prisoners of conscience are subjected: threats and intimidation, isolation and sensory deprivation, and beatings and torture.
Readers with the courage to enter the world of Sabet’s prison cell, however, will be amply rewarded by the powerful testimony her poems give of the remarkable resilience of the human spirit. From simple pleas for strength to probing meditations on the more nuanced task of making meaning of seemingly endless daily hardships, the poems in A Tale of Love will speak to any reader prepared to contemplate the tragedy of Sabet’s unjust imprisonment, a tragedy forged from groundless accusations rooted in ignorance and prejudice.
The translation of the poems in this volume was begun in consultation with the poet herself, in the course of weekly Zoom meetings. With Sabet’s return to Evin Prison in July 2022, however, all communication was brought to a sudden halt. Nevertheless, the translators persisted in their efforts to bring their work to completion, in the
hope that this extraordinary volume, which, in addition to its value as poetry, serves as a record of the experience of many Bahá’ís imprisoned in Iran today, would be published.
The translators worked closely together to transmit Mahvash Sabet’s poetic intentions as accurately as possible, with Shahin Mowzoon, a native speaker of Persian, offering word-for-word translations of each poem in various drafts, which poet Sandra Lynn Hutchison then re-created as English-language poems. At all times, the translators have remained cognizant of the uniqueness of the experiences being described in Sabet’s poems and of the imperative to render them as faithfully as possible.
Sandra Lynn Hutchison
February 2024 Orono, Maine
Two Thousand Seven Hundred and Twenty
Two thousand seven hundred and twenty times the sun has risen. Two thousand seven hundred and twenty times the sun has set, and every morning I step out of my dark corner to grasp the light, listen for the sound of my heart as it whispers prayers, feel my arm stretching toward God.
Two thousand seven hundred and twenty times, the difference between my yesterday and today is no more than a half a verse at the tip of my pen, my point of departure and my destination the same. So it is I die with the living and live with the dead, all my gestures confined to this strange and foreign land where I have lived so long, this small, loveless place, this enclosed space, this land forever fenced.