Tahirih Unveiled, Poems by Julia Older
Tahirih
of Persia (1818-1854) was courageous as Joan of Arc, determined as Elizabeth
Stanton, and beautiful as the legendary Sheherazade. She often lectured
(behind a curtain) at her father's Mosque in Qazvin. A religious prodigy,
Tahirih prophesied the coming of a 1000-year Prophet, Bab. She was denounced
as a heretic by her Mullah father, uncle, and husband, and sent into exile.
Tahirih composed spiritual poems on horseback in the Mazanderan forests
above Tehran and on a 800-mile desert caravan to teach at Karbala.
Bab made her his disciple, and at the First Babi Conference Tahirih led the women in their fight for equality. Soon after, she was forced into hiding. Babi followers were executed by the hundreds, but charmed by Tahirih's wit and beauty, the Shah ordered, "I like her looks so let her be." An attempt on the Shah's life led to her arrest and murder. Although most of Tahirih's poems went up in flames when she did, a strange turn of poetic justice today preserves a few as popular folk songs.
In Older's moving poem, the intimate yet resonant voice of Tahirih opens new perspectives on the Persian culture--yesterday and today.
Praise for Julia Older's Previous Work
"Each poem through
nature-based images creates an inner world in now delicate now fierce
poems."--The Comstock Review
Julia Older has published ten poetry collections. She translated Blues
for a Black Cat (French stories by Boris Vian, University of
Nebraska Press) and is working on Persian ghazals. Tahirih
poems won a First Varoujan Prize and grants from the Puffin Foundation
and Deming Memorial Fund. Older's novels include The Island Queen
and This Desired Place (Appledore Books); her writing is in Entelechy
International, The New Yorker, Poets & Writers, and numerous
other publications.
ISBN: 978-1933456591, 88 pages, $17.00
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