Life and art are a perpetual journey of searching, nurturing, and fine-tuning voice. Participation with life occurs through voice. To elevate one’s voice is a central responsibility of being human, because, according to poet Forugh Farrokhzad, ultimately it is only voice that endures. For Farrokhzad, expressing her voice through art was “a vital need, a need on the scale of eating and sleeping, something like breathing.” This compulsion, despite the immense challenges she faced living in Iran during the 1950s and 1960s, reflects her belief in the power of voice as both a creative necessity and an act of resistance. 

Sholeh Wolpé, Farrokhzad’s translator, says her “poetry was the poetry of protest — protest through revelation — revelation of the taboo: the innermost world of women, their intimate secrets and desires, their sorrows, longings, aspirations and at times even their articulation through silence.” Farrokhzad’s poetry is known for its sensuality, boldness, exploration of female identity, and candid expressions of personal and political issues. Her poetry tackled taboo topics such as love, desire, and the struggles of women in Iran’s patriarchal society. Her lover, Ebrahim Golestan, the renowned Iranian filmmaker and intellectual, shared in an interview how much he admired Farrokhzad’s fearlessness in a society that continually castigated her. He believed the greatest influence on her work was Farrokhzad herself; her own experiences and desire for freedom and self-expression. As she wrote in a letter to him: 

I first became interested in “voice” through encounters with silence: the absence of voices, those forgotten, deliberately excluded or erased. A couple of years ago, as I compiled an anthology of menstruation experiences, I noticed which voices were missing from the mainstream discourse, particularly those marginalized by politics, poverty, occupation, religion or social status. I saw more clearly which voices were privileged, ignored or shouted down. This led me to search out those voices which were muted either from fear, shame or lack of confidence, or oppressed by cultural norms. As I discovered them, I began to understand how integral voice is to identity, freedom, and agency. One instance was when I was interviewing homeless women outside a Sufi shrine in Multan, Pakistan. I realized they were reluctant to speak to me because we were being watched by a group of men whom they presumably feared. Equally, I noted how transmen were unwilling to speak about their menstruation experiences because they were afraid of being ostracized or losing their jobs. The more I researched, the better I understood how patriarchy, religion, and politics had created and propagated myths of shame around periods, and stigmatized them as a way to control womens’ bodies and choices. Over time, my reflection on voice prompted me to revisit Farrokhzad’s poetry. Her life and work offered comfort and a framework to understand my own struggles with bringing voices to the fore and silencing forces in my life.

Farrokhzad’s poetic journey spans from personal entrapment to profound liberation. Her evolution is reflected in her poems written a decade apart, “The Captive” (1955) and “Only Voice Remains” (1966), where the shift from the voice of a “captive bird” to a triumphant, defiant “voice” marks a transition from suffocation to freedom. The contrast between these two poems provides insight into Farrokhzad’s inner life — her journey from the oppressive confines of Iranian society to a renewed understanding of her own agency and spiritual liberation. In some ways, it helped me understand my own trajectory in appreciating the necessity of using one’s voice for resistance, lowering it for self-preservation, and rediscovering its resilience after a period in the tunnel of silence.