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The Mirror Of My Heart - A Thousand Years of Persian Poetry by Women

Introduced and Translated by Dick Davis

⊹₊⟡⋆Overview⊹₊⟡⋆

Introduced by translator Dick Davis, The Mirror Of My Heart holds amazing translations of Women poets who hail from Persian countries. Davis himself lived in Iran for 8 years and speaks Farsi. His wife, Afkham Darbandi, a native Persian speaker, helped with the translations as well. Davis dedicated the anthology to her saying "it is doubtful whether [the] anthology would exist at all" (Davis lxxiii) without her support.

The anthology begins with around 70 pages of history on Persia and the modern countries in it. It mentions poets whose work is included within the later half, and includes their life and mention. The introduction is beautifully crafted non-fiction and is definitely worth the read.

The poems collected start at the Medieval and end at Modern Era. Each author is included with a small biographical portion before her poems, along with the time she lived/worked.

⊹₊⟡⋆Poems⊹₊⟡⋆

From Mahsati (1089-1159)

Come, I've prepared a private room where we can meet,

With precious clothes laid there, to make a snug retreat;

I've grilled kebabs and wine I want to share with you---

The wine is from my eyes, my anguished heart's the meat.

From Rabia (10th Century)

My hope's that God will make you fall in love with

With someone cold and callous just like you

And that you'll realize my true value when

You're twisting in the torments I've been through.

⊹₊⟡⋆Thoughts⊹₊⟡⋆

Ah I wish I could've finished this one! It was great introduction and poems with helpful footnotes as well. I borrowed it from my campus Library so I had to return it at the end of the semester and just didn't have enough time.

I would recommend this anthology to anyone interested in Persian Poetry!!

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Sillage - Written 2024

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Her world could only exist in a whales stomach. Her mother was the first to try to see out. She had climbed the mucosa, slipping down the bile-thick sides. That was all she had seen; her mother crested the esophagus after that, leaving her daughter in that slugging muck, forever to choke on desperate breaths of vile air and sore-throated mornings gurgling on the bone-cleaving acid. 

It was always dark in there. She never saw what her mother had said of the outside. Days spent floating in that putrid accompanied her in thoughts, dreams. That blistering fire arching the walls. It could pierce ones’ skin, her mother used to say. 

She sometimes wondered where her mother was now, past the mucosa. She could scream. Yell out to her dearest companion. Throat boiled raw, blisters closing so thickly, bubbling inside her mouth that absence only released between her lips. 

Perhaps her mother was waiting for her daughter, stuck there in the throat. Perhaps she was finding a loose tooth to pull for a rope. 

It was dark. And she hurt. Acid, eating away. Those cursed sores. Her flesh burned raw, never enough to break through the layers. Her eyes peeled back in rips. Her body was deteriorating. 

When would her mother come? 

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The Mirror Of My Heart -- A Thousand Years of Persian Poetry by Women

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Sillage

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Literary Essay Masterpost 𓈒ㅤׂ 𝜗𝜚

Childhood Love: An Analysis of Differing Affection in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Mrs. Sen’s

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⊹₊⟡⋆ Welcome ⊹₊⟡⋆

Hello everyone! Welcome to @literatureinthepoppies , my lovely little Literature/Writing blog! I've been a Tumblr user for about 5 years now and finally I found it to make a blog for writing.

My name is Mud (they/them) and I am currently working on a Bachelor of the Arts for Creative Writing. This blog will showcase my many literary essays and workings as I get my degree and hopefully after!

If you are interested in being showcased as the writer of the month send in a question or post! I can't wait to get reading :) See you all later!

With love,

Mud

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Childhood Love: An Analysis of Differing Affection in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Mrs. Sen’s

Written by @literatureinthepoppies

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

In her short story Mrs. Sen’s, Jhumpa Lahiri beautifully chronicles the story of the relationship between a nanny and a child, effectively leading the reader to observe differing childhood affection across cultures and times. This differing affection shapes characters, not only in life, but in actions that progress the plot. The protagonists, Mrs. Sen and Eliot, guide each other's lives in the present.However, that attachment to childhood love is what guides both characters' inner world. Eliot focuses his life around Mrs. Sen, radically accepting her even while his birth-mother stays distant. He is repeatedly seen pleasing adults as a result of his mother’s distance. Meanwhile, Mrs. Sen is guided by her adoration of her community and family in India, repeatedly listening to tapes and refusing to Americanize herself to remain close to her loved ones. Both characters experience radical differences when it comes to attention and affection from their families; this not only molds the characters, but drives the plot to highlight the separation between a loving childhood and a distant childhood. 

Eliot’s characterization in Mrs. Sen’s radically conveys the distress and inner conflict of latchkey children. Eliot's mother repeatedly finds him nannies as she works full-time at the local University. This leads to Eliot finding Mrs. Sen and becoming welcomingly meshed into her life. He even “learned to remove his sneakers first thing” (Lahiri 112) at her doorway. Mrs. Sen shows Eliot affection that his mother never gives him. She picks him up from the bus stop with peanuts, cuts him fruit to snack on, and talks to him like an adult. On the other hand, his birth-mother is consistently busy at her job. Eliot is told that “the thought had never occurred to him” (Lahiri 122) to miss his mother. Eliot’s mother is continuously put under a lens of othering and neglect, with Eliot finding her “beige shorts and rope-soled shoe” (Lahiri 112) to be the one “look[ing] odd.” (Lahiri 112), along with Eliot noting strange men spending the night in his mother’s bedroom only to be gone by morning. 

Mrs. Sen effectively gives Eliot a home in her apartment with her husband, Mr. Sen. While Eliot spends his afternoons with Mrs. Sen, he slowly begins to view her as a safe place. He integrates her into her daily life, and the two become extremely close, confiding in each other about the present and past. In conversation, Eliot tends to be the listener , his demeanor thoughtful but timid when it comes to asking. He avoids conflict with Mrs. Sen, a byproduct of his mothers distant love. He even going as far as telling his mother he is okay with staying at the cold beach house after he is taken away from Mrs. Sen. The dull, empty “gray waves” (Lahiri 135) juxtapose the colorful nature of Mrs. Sens’ apartment, highlighting Eliot’s melancholy from being away from the only person who gave him affectionate love.

Mrs. Sen’s upbringing was radically different from Eliot’s. She recalls her vibrant, loving community, the chatter from women cutting vegetables, the soothing music, the flow in economy even. From the very start, Mrs. Sen declares that India is her true home. “Everything is there” (Lahiri 113) for her, her family, her culture, her life. Mrs. Sen repeatedly listens to tapes “that her family had made for her” (Lahiri 128) and music that is from her childhood. She is caught in nostalgia for a time that will not come back and desire for her home country. She finds her current life lacking that unconditional love she grew up with and expresses distress when it comes to her family thinking how luxurious her life is now in the US.

These nostalgic feelings obstruct Mrs. Sen's ability to acclimate, creating feelings of resistance to her new life in the US. She is desperate to stay connected to her family and community in India, even thousands of miles away. This attitude presents itself  in Mrs. Sen’s defiance in learning to drive. She tells Eliot’s mother that she had never needed to drive before, that in India they had chauffeurs. Mrs. Sen attempts many times to drive, but the anxiety gets to her and she declares she “hates it. [She] hates driving” (Lahiri 131). This marked the end of her attempts to integrate herself into the life her family desired for her, and the life that she dreamt of to move to the US. Mrs. Sen is now completely engulfed by her nostalgia and longing, trapped in the past where she was surrounded by affection.

Jhumpa Lahiri explores the distress and love that comes with life in Mrs. Sen’s. While Eliot is neglected by his mother, which leads him to be distant and radical in acceptance when he is given love, the opposite is true to Mrs. Sen. Her upbringing brought love and affection. She is resistant to change, consistently missing her home and her family. These two radically different childhoods highlight the difficulties that come with any upbringing and how differing love in childhood shapes characters and people in life. 

Works Cited: 

Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies. Flamingo, 2000.