Fereydoon Moshiri : A delicate soul
Sunday October 24 was the sad anniversary of a loss: the day the flame of one of the brightest figures of contemporary Persian literature was put out by the omnipresent breeze of death.
Fereydoon Moshiri, poet and journalist was born on September 21, 1926 in Tehran. At the age of 6 he began attending Adab grade school in Tehran before moving, to the city of Mashad in the Khorasan province, home of many of Iran’s past literary figures. In 1941, one year after beginning high school in Shah Reza School, he moved back to Tehran and continued his studies at the famous Daar-ol Fonoon School.
During his adolescence he gradually became familiar with poetry and literature, this pursuit became his life’s passion. His first poem, titled “Our Tomorrow” was published at the age of 18 in the ‘Iran-e ma’ Newspaper. His career as a journalist, which he entered at the age of fifteen, introduced him with such influential figures as Dehkhoda, Pourdavoud, and Mo’een. His biggest influence though continued to be Nima Yousheej, who founded the new school of Iranian Poetry; whose influence is evident in Moshiri’s style and poetry.
Scream
I pound my fists upon the door,
Scratch my nails upon the windows,
I’m suffering from suffocation, suffocation!
I’m sick and tired of everything,
Let me bellow out:
-Aaahhh
I’m talking to you!
Open these doors!***
I’m searching for a space:
The edge of a roof,
In a mountain,
The heart of a desert
So that I can refresh my breath there.
Aah!* * *
I’m searching for a space:
The edge of a roof,
In a mountain,
The heart of a desert
So that I can refresh my breath there.
Aah!
I want to scream out loud
So that my voice may reach you!* * *
I need to scream,
Like one
Who is in need of air,
I pound my fists upon the door
Scratch my nails upon the windows,
I am in need.* * *
I will set free my scream
This scream must cure my pain
From you “-Dormant Few-!”
Who will come and scream with me?
Tragedy struck in young Fereydoon’s life in 1945, when at the young age of 19 he lost his mother, who was only 39. At this time, he also began his post-secondary education at the Faculty of Literature at the University of Tehran. However his studies at the University were short-lived, as he left the university and decided to continue at the Ministry of Post and Telegraph’s Technical College. A year after his appointment to the office of post and telegraph in the north of Tehran, he joined the National Front’s ‘Shahed’ Newspaper as a reporter, and began his career in journalism.
1951 was an important year for Moshiri. He began what would end up being an 18-year co-operation with ‘Roshanfekr’ Journal. It was also during this year that Moshiri met and married Eghbal Akhavan, a young student at the school of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran.
New years 1955 saw Moshiri publish his first volume of poetry ‘Thirsty for the Storm’. His first daughter, Bahar, was born in 1957, and his son, Babak in 1960. The following year his third book ‘Cloud’ was published which contained the poem ‘The Alley’ which became his most cited and well-loved poem. To this day many identify Moshiri with this beautiful piece.
The Alley
Without you I walked through The Alley once again, on a moonlit night
My entire being, a pair of eyes, searching for your sight,
The desire to see you, brimmed over the cup of my soul,
I was again turned into the mad lover I was before.In the depths of my soul the flower of your memory shone,
The orchard of a hundred memories laughed,
The fragrance of a hundred memories wafted in the air,
I remember that night when we passed through They Alley,
We unfurled our wings and strolled in that beautiful solitude.We sat for a while at the foot of a brook
You, with all the secrets of existence, poured into your eyes,
Me, entranced by the look in your glance.The sky was smooth, and night was still
Fortune was smiling, and time was tame
The cluster of the moon had landed in the water
And the branches turning their hands to the moonlight.
The night and the desert and the flower and the stone,
All enchanted by the song of the nightingale.I remember you told me: be wary of this love!
Look for one moment at this brook
Water, is the mirror of evanescent love,
You whose glance is worried about the glance of another.
Tomorrow your heart will be with others.
Forget this, and leave this town for some time.”I told you: “Be wary of love? I don’t know how to
To journey away from you? I shall never be able to,
I cannot.The first day when my heart yearned for you,
I was sitting like a dove on the edge of your roof,
You threw rock at me! I was neither startled nor did I fall apart.”I said once again “You are the hunter and I am the deer!
I searched everywhere for you trap, so that I could be ensnared!
Avoiding love, I neither know, nor can.A teardrop fell from a branch!
The nightingale flew away with a bitter sob!
Tears quivered in your eyes
The moon laughed at your love!I remember that I didn’t hear from you again.
Thus, I robed myself in grief.
I did not fall apart, I did not get startled …That night went into the darkness of grief, along with many other nights!
You didn’t even seek any news from your hurt lover!
And you will never again pass through that Alley… !But, with what sorrow did I pass through The Alley.
By 1962 he was offered admission to Radio Iran’s Writer’s Guild, and began to publish more of his poetry. In 1970 he published a volume containing some selected pieces of his poetry, with an introduction by some of Iran’s greatest literary figures, like Shafi’i Kadkani and Nader Naderpour among others.
His rise to prominence on literary scene continued with several visits to Europe, and a voyage to India where he gave a lecture at Kashmir for Persian language scholars in that country. Finally in 1978 he retired after 33 years of service to the Post and Telegraph Company of Iran.
The post-revolutionary years were very productive for Moshiri, as he began to devote more of his time to poetry and began to find his voice, publishing ‘Pearl of Love’ in 1986, ‘Ah, Rain’ in 1988, ‘From the Land of Familiarity’ in 1992, ‘In the Company of Five Persian Scholars’ in 1993, to name a few. By 1997 he also began to give more spoken word lectures, including a speech at University of California at Berkeley.
Unfortunately, over the second half of the 90’s Moshiri began to suffer from Leukemia and Renal Failure. Sadly on October 24th, 2000, Fereydoon Moshiri finally succumbed to his sickness and passed away.
In style, Moshiri bridged the gap between Classical Persian poetry where the content is bound within a tight structure of rhyme and metre, and New Poetry that focuses more on content and message at the expense of the rigid structure of the classical poetry. In fact, Moshiri in many ways parallels his ‘master’ Nima Yousheej (the founder of modern Persian poetry). Yet he stands apart from the likes of Sohrab Sepehri, for his poetry still retains some rhythm and is less abstract in structure.
Earth’s Snare
I’m neither eagle, nor dove, but
As I come to life, in this foreign soil
The magical wings of poetry,
The dreamy wings of love,
Take me to the heights of the heavens.* * *
I take flight, to the heights,
I get far from this stage, far,
I go to a land wherein
It’s all music of the soul and blossoming of light
All songs of mirth …
How far will this joyful wave carry me* * *
Without beating a wing, on the edge of that high roof
The memory of birds caught in cages
Pulls me back down to the earth!
As a poet, and a human, Moshiri is a humanist. He sees the simple beauties of life, and takes our attention away from our self-wrought trivialities and tells us to live for a moment, away from the manmade buzz of life. He teaches us about love, and invites us to partake in its dance, and to breath it in.
Other than your Affection …
Oh Love! Other than you do I have a companion? Nay
Or other than your sorrows, do I have any sadness? Nay
With all the mortal wounds that you deal me,
Other than your affection, do I have any cure? Nay!
Fereydoon Moshiri, was a delicate soul, who like all others of his kind was taken from us much to soon. But his words will always linger with us, and teach us the lesson of life, as he experienced them.
The Teacher’s lesson
In the classroom of life
There are various lessons:
The lesson of earning your bread and water,
The lesson of living with this person and that.The lesson of kindness,
The lesson of anger,
The lesson of becoming familiar.
The lesson of separating due to the slightest doubt!Next to these teachers and lessons,
Among zeroes and perfect marks;
There is also one grand teacher,
With us in every moment of our lives!
Who is in every class and is not.His name is: Death!
And what he teaches
Is “Life”.
(all poetry by Fereydoon Moshiri, translated by Shahriar Zayyani)
Originally published in Shahrvand English (N° 5) — November 2, 2004
