1 I have adopted this term from Shamisa, Sirus, Naghd-e She'r-e Sohrab Sepehri (Analyzing the Poetry of Sohrab Sepehri) (Tehran, 1990), 11Google Scholar.

2 Kianush, Mahmud, Modern Persian Poetry (Ware, Herts, 1996), 14Google Scholar.

3 During its nonproductive life, Persian poetry had been delimited by conventions, perceptions and rules that gradually automatized this prodigious poetic tradition. As Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak indicated, “[w]hereas Persian poets of Medieval Persia such as Ferdowsi, Khayyam, Sa'di, Rumi, and Hafez had penetrated new spheres with the thrust of their imagination, their descendants, during the general cultural decline that followed, sought merely to imitate them” (in Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, An Anthology of Modern Persian Poetry (Colorado, 1978), 2. In terms of its linguistic form, the obsolete and artificial language of the so-called classical poetry was an imitation of the Persian used in the medieval times and had little affinities with modern Persian language. As a result, this poetic language was difficult for ordinary people to comprehend.

4 Dabashi, Hamid, Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, and Future (London and NY, 2001), 43Google Scholar.

5 Dabashi, Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, and Future, 44.

6 Shamisa, Sohrab Sepehri, 13.

7 “Seday-e Pay-e Ab,” (“The Sound of Water Steps”), Hasht Ketab (Eight Books) (Tehran, 1982), 291.

8 The emphasis is mine.

9 Quoted in Shamis, Sirus, Negahi be Forough Farrokhzad (Forough Farrokhzad from a Critical Perspective) (Tehran, 1993), 255Google Scholar.

10 Although Farrokhzad's talking about her sexuality in the 50s and 60s could be seen as a socio-political protest, and therefore a political act, one should consider that even though her poetry is socially and politically concerned, the poet's voice is pregnant with a personal perspective, which shows her genuine human concerns.

11 “Another Birth” translated by Karim Emami, quoted in Hillmann, Michael, A Lonely Woman: Forough Farrokhzad and Her Poetry (Washington, 1987), 112Google Scholar.

12 Hillmann, A Lonely Woman, 113–114.

13 “Another Birth,” translated by Karim Emami in Hillmann, 111.

14 Sirus Shamisa, Sohrab Sepehri, 14.

15 Moreover, in the “seamless reality” that is usually used in mainstream cinema productions, the camera-work, lighting, sound, editing, and color do not draw the spectator's attention as it intends to enhance the illusion of a fixed reality.

16 In Qukasian, Zaven, ed., Majmu'e-ye Maghalat dar Naghd va Mo'arefi-ye Assar-e Abbas Kiarostami (Abbas Kiarostami: A Collection of Critiques and Essays) (Tehran, 1996), 26Google Scholar.

17 Bazin, André, What Is Cinema? Essays Selected and Translated by Hugh Gray (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1970), 28Google Scholar.

18 Zir-e Derakhtan-e Zeitoon (Through the Olive Trees), video, Abbas Kiarostami, 1994; Iran: Farabi Film Foundation, 1994.

19 André Bazin, What Is Cinema?, 34.

20 Khaneh Doost Kojast? (Where Is the Friend's House?), video, Abbas Kiarostami, 1987; Iran: The Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, 1987.

21 Hasht Ketab, “The Sound of Water Steps,” 292.

22 Shamisa, Sohrab Sepehri's Poetry from a Critical Perspective, 11.

23 Hillmann in A Lonely Woman: Forough Farrokhzad and Her Poetry, 77–78, and Milani in Kessler, Jascha and Banani, Amin, Bride of Acacias: Selected Poems of Forough Farrokhzad (New York, 1982), 146Google Scholar.

24 Here I have used Hillmann's translation in A Lonely Woman, 77.

25 My discussion explores Farrokhzad's poetry in its relation to Kiarostami's film grammar, not her life or the detailed autobiographical aspects of her poetry. For more information regarding her life and its relation to her poems, refer to Michael Hillman's A Lonely Woman: Forough Farrokhzad and Her Poetry.

26 Milani, Farzaneh, “Forough Farrokhzad,” Persian Literature, ed., Yarshater, Ehsan (New York, 1988), 370Google Scholar.

27 “Paradise Regained: Farrokhzad's ‘Garden Conquered’” in Forough Farrokhzad: A Quarter Century Later, ed. Michael Hillman (Austin, 1988), 91–105.

28 Michael Hillmann, A Lonely Woman, 84.

29 Mashgh-e Shab (Homework), video, Abbas Kiarostami, 1990; Iran: The Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, 1990.

30 Qukasian, Zaven, ed., “Documentary Approaches in Kiarostami's Flims,” (Tehran, 1996), 75Google Scholar.

31 Qukasian, “Documentary Approaches in Kiarostami's Flims,” 75.

32 Kiarostami's superb fresh look at subjects is capable of surprise in the most obvious matters (from a grown-up perspective). One such example is in one of his poems, which poeticizes and defamiliarizes a simple event such as a leaf falling on its shadow. The poem reads:

Here I have used Karimi-Hakkak and Beard's translation and analysis in Kiarostami, Abbas, Walking with the Wind, trans., Karimi-Hakkak, Ahmad and Beard, Michael (Cambridge and London, 2001), 57Google Scholar.

33 Bad Ma ra ba Khod Khahad Bord (Wind Will Carry Us), DVD, Abbas Kiarostami, 1999; Iran, MK2 France, 1999.

34 Hasht Ketab, “To the Garden of Fellow-Travelers,” 298–99.

35 For more on this refer to http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/arts/story/2005/04/050428_pm-kiarostami-iv.shtml.

36 Saeed-Vafa, Mehrnaz and Rosenbaum, Jonathan, Abbas Kiarostami, (Urbana and Chicago, 2003), 2Google Scholar.

37 Yek Ettefagh-e Sade (A Simple Event), video, Sohrab Shahid Sales, (1973; Iran: Distributor ?, 1973).

38 Rosenbaum in M. Saeed-Vafa and J. Rosenbaum, Abbas Kiarostami, 2.

39 Hamid Dabashi, Close Up: Iranian Cinema, 47.

40 M. Saeed-Vafa and J. Rosenbaum, Abbas Kiarostami, 2.

41 Khaneh Siyah Ast (The House Is Black), VCD, Forough Farrokhzad, (1962; Iran: Nasser Saffarian, 2002).

42 Quoted in M. Saeed-Vafa and J. Rosenbaum, Abbas Kiarostami, 2.

43 According to Nasser Saffarian, this film was released by Golestan Studios after Farrokhzad's death in a shortened or censored edition. However, on its fortieth anniversary, Saffarian released the original film in Iran (as originally shown in New York Film Festival) accompanied with commentaries by Iranian filmmakers and critics. Ebrahim Golestan initially denied a second version of The House Is Black, but since I had the opportunity to see both versions, I am convinced that the one that was released by Golestan Studios was not the original version. In my discussion of The House Is Black I am referring to the original, non-censored version.

44 Kessler and Banani, Bride of Acacias, 6.

45 The House Is Black is not a single instance in Farrokhzad's film profile. She was an active member of Golestan Studios that made several prize-winning documentaries. Among other films, she assisted in the production of Ebrahim Golestan's Khesht o Ayeneh (Mudbrick and Mirror, 1964) and played an unacknowledged role in the film. As Hillmann asserts, this film has shared themes with Farrokhzad's Poem “Ey Marz-e Por Gohar” (Oh! Jewel-Studded Land), 55. In 1965, Farrokhzad also participated in two short films, “one made under the auspices of UNESCO and the other filmed in Tehran by Bernardo Bertolucci. Only six months before her death her filmmaking career was on the verge of expanding beyond Persia. At the ‘Authors’ Film Festival' in Pesaro in 1966 she was invited by some Swedish filmmakers to make a film in Sweden. She had agreed to go. She also left plans for a scenario depicting the life of a Persian woman” (Banani p. 6). Farrokhzad also acted in theatre and translated a few dramas into Persian.

46 Gav (Caw), video, Dariush Mehrjouei, (1969; Iran, Ministry of Art and Culture).

47 Shajdeh Ehtejab (Prince Ehtejab), video, Bahman Farmanara, (1974; Iran, Tel-Film).

48 In “The House Is Black Commentary,” directed by Nasser Saffarian (Tehran, 2002).

49 qtd in Hillman, A Lonely Woman, 43–44. Also as Kaveh Golestan in the film commentary indicates, this realist pictorial approach to a social problem was an approach that already existed in documentary reports in the journals of that period in Iran.

50 Saeed-Vafa and Rosenbaum, Abbas Kiarostami, 4.

51 Amir Karrari, a member of Farrokhzad's film crew points out that Farrokhzad's style required long takes at the time of shooting which were to be later edited into smaller pieces related to other scenes through editing. He states that Farrokhzad would not necessarily arrange the edited parts in synchronic order. Both indications are in The House Is Black Commentary).

52 A.B.C. Africa, DVD, Abbas Kiarostami, (2001; Uganda, New Yorker Video Street, 2005).

53 Rosenbaum in Saeed-Vafa and Rosenbaum, Abbas Kiarostami, 5.

54 Golestan's dispassionate account is very similar to the teacher's criticizing and secular account of the funeral ceremony in Siyah Darreh in Wind Will Carry Us. My later discussion of this film, which sheds light on some aspects of the villagers' perception of reality (for example, in terms of Farzad, and the local doctor), will clarify how Kiarostami, like Farrokhzad, brings a critical two-fold version of reality with regard to the villagers' beliefs and worldview, as both humane and self-destructive.

55 Bahram Beizaei in The House Is Black commentary.

56 Beizaei in “The House Is Black Commentary” and Rosenbaum in Saeed-Vafa and Rosenbaum, Abbas Kiarostami, 5.

57 Ramin Jahanbegloo in Qukasian, Zaven, Abbas Kiarostami: A Collection of Critiques and Essays, (Tehran, 1996), 21Google Scholar.

58 In Zaven Qukasian, Abbas Kiarostami, 21.

59 There is a linguistic/cultural point here that I should explain: In Iran, people who are considered superior either economically or from a class-structure point of view are called, by the lower-class, not by their names but by the title of their class or profession, such as doctor, engineer, colonel, khan and so forth. This also holds true when people wish to show their respect to someone. Most often, whether they are really doctors or engineers, for instance, or have similar professions, people call them by these titles to show their consideration. For example, they might call a nurse a doctor, or a sergeant is called a colonel. In modern times, as this class-conscious structure is problematized, sometimes such title attribution is treated sarcastically. The title of engineer given to Behzad has a humorous tone for the Iranian audience and makes the whole movie more ironical.

60 Lucy, Nail, Postmodern Literary Theory (Oxford and Malden, 1997), 235–7Google Scholar.

61 Horizons of Assent: Modernism, Postmodernism, and the Ironic Imagination, 2.

62 Saeed-Vafa and Rosenbaum, Abbas Kiarostami, 112.

63 Quoted in Wilde, Allen, Horizons of Assent: Modernism, Postmodernism, and the Ironic Imagination (Baltimore, 1981), 27Google Scholar.

64 Quoted in Horizons of Assent, 27.

65 Excerpts from ‘Anthnäum Fragments’ quoted in Andrew Michaels Roberts, “Romantic Irony and the Postmodern Sublime: Geoffrey Hills and ‘Sebastian Arrurruz’,” Romanticism and Postmodernism, ed., Edward Larrissy (Cambridge, 1999), 144.

66 Nama-ye Nazdik (Close Up), video, Abbas Kiarstami, (1990; Iran, Farabi Fundation, 1991).

67 Hasht Ketab, “The Sound of Water Steps,” 271–2.

68 Shamisa, Sohrab Sepehri, 45.

69 This letter and the poem are published in a collection of Farrokhzad's letters to Parviz Shapur, her husband, 261–72. The book is entitled The First Love Beats of My Heart (Tehran, 2002), compiled by her son Kamyar Shapur and Omran Salahi.

70 Roberts, “Romantic Irony,”154.

71 Roberts, “Romantic Irony,”151.

72 Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis, 1996), 61.

73 Nobat-e Ashegi (Time of Love), video, Mohsen Makhmalbaf (1991; Turkey, Makhmalbaf Film House/Bac Films International distribution, 1991).

74 Hasht Ketab, “Neshani,” 358–9.

75 “Iranian Cinema at MIFF 2000” in Senses of Cinema. http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/festivals/00/9/iranian.html. 15 May 2005.

76 Golestaneh is a village near the city of Kashan, Iran.

77 Hasht Ketab, “Glestaneh,” 348–52.

78 Saeed-Vafa and Rosenbaum, Abbas Kiarostami, 113.

79 This is an article in Tapper, Richard, The New Iranian Cinema: Politics, Representation and Identity (London and NY, 2002), 200–15Google Scholar.

80 Stephen Bransford, “Days in the Country: Representations of Rural Space and Place in Abbas Kiarostami's Life and Nothing More, Through the Olive Trees, and Wind Will Carry Us,” Senses of Cinema: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/03/29/kiarostami_rural_space_and_place.html. 28 February 2006.

81 One such reaction is seen among the Iranian audiences who prefer a more aggressive and revolutionary cinematic approach, similar to the third cinema of Ebrahim Hatami-Kia or early Makhmalbaf movies. In “Unmediated Event Writing,” Javad Toosi, for instance, calls Kiarostami's Rostamabad trilogy “a cowardice conservatism of a director who is repeating himself in Poshteh and Koker, and Rostamabad” which is far from “his bold and daring perspective in Report, Traveler, and A Suite for Wedding” (in Zaven Qukasian, Abbas Kiarostami, 188).

82 In Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak and Michael Beard, “Introduction,” Walking with the Wind, 10.

83 “From Imagistic Esthetics to Verbal Kinetics, Recent Trends in Persian Poetry,” 10. This article was presented at The Conference on Iranian Cinema as Twenty-First Century Persian Literature, University of Texas at Austin, 19–21 April 2002. Upon my request, Dr. Karimi-Hakkak kindly sent this article for me. A version of this article is published as “Contemporary Trends in Persian Poetry,” Wasafiri 38 (Spring 2003): 56–60.

84 Hasht Ketab, “Neda-ye Aghaz,” 392–3.

85 Astruc, Alexander, “The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: La Caméra Stylo,” The New Wave: Critical Landmarks, ed. Graham, Peter (New York, 1968): 17–23Google Scholar.

86 Astruc, “The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: La Caméra Stylo,” 18–19.

87 Astruc, “The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: La Caméra Stylo,” 19.

88 Astruc, “The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: La Caméra Stylo,” 20.

89 Hamid Naficy, “Filmmakers as Poets and Intellectuals: The Case of Kiarostami,” presented at Iranian Cinema as Twenty-First Century Persian Literature Conference, University of Texas, Austin (19–21 April 2002), 6.

90 Dandan-dard (Toothache), video, Abbas Kiarostami, (1980; Iran: The Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, 1980).

91 Hamid Dabashi, Close Up: Iranian Cinema, 47.