About Sima Yari
Sima Yari is one of the distinctive voices among the modernists of contemporary Persian poetry. Her first poetry collections were published in this order: Aftab Mahtab (Sunlight, Moonlight) in 1998, Kelagh Par (Crow Flies) in 2000, Sadaf va Ghahveh (Seashell and Coffee) in 2003, and the long poem Kilid (The Key) in 2005.
The first edition of Shabaneh (Nocturne) was published by Amin Dezh. The fourth edition of Sadaf va Ghahveh, in two volumes, and a volume of the poet’s short stories, Ghabl az Vagheh (Before the Event), were published by Mes and are available to readers. A bilingual Persian–English collection of her poems in translation, Seadat (Happiness), translated by Najaf Daryabandari, has also been published by Mes.
The collections Sal-e Asal (The Honey Year), Jodayi (Separation) and Dast-e Akhar (In the End, in four volumes) are ready for publication.
All of Sima’s new poems — the collections Shabaneh (2007), Cheshmak (2008), Sale Zanbagh (2009), Gandomzar (2010), Rowzaneh (2011), Sarsabz (2012), Hameh Golhaye Sorkh (2013–2014), Maani (2015–2018), Sahel-e Sheni (2018) and Zan (2019) — as well as the two books Aftab Mahtab and Kelagh Par, are available in full on this website.
Sima’s simple poems…
The most important quality of Sima Yari’s poems is their simplicity. Yet simplicity is itself a very complex notion. Although many contemporary poets have made simplicity their aim, few of their works are remembered as successful examples. The line between simplicity and banality (in the sense of repetition and stating the obvious) is so fine that the slightest slip leaves a poet’s or a writer’s efforts fruitless. In Sima Yari’s work we see no such mistake. As critics have observed, although this poet’s keen eye rests on the most everyday events, open to everyone, she chooses and expresses these scenes with a sharpness seldom seen in literature to date. In the very short poem “Happiness”, for example, the two words Devil and betrayal cleverly carry a new meaning.
Happiness
Even after death
I
will be happy here.
Here, where we
betrayed
the Devil
and loved each other.
Although in all four of her published collections this poet avoids the traditional verbal ornaments of poetry, she understands the achievements of the modern Persian poetry movement and seeks to extend them. On the whole, Sima Yari could be called an impressionist poet. Yet her images of everyday moments seem to hold infinity within them.
The presence of the human being is an active reality that shows itself in these works: a being that affects and is affected, and that is defined, and comes into being, through this relationship. One of this poet’s most important works is the long poem “Vision” in the book Kilid, whose study must wait for another occasion.
Despite her boldness with fresh themes, Sima Yari moves cautiously (conservatively) in the realm of language. Language in these works is treated as a means of communication between author and society, which is why no arbitrary tampering with language is to be found in her work.
In this chaotic bazaar of fruitless experiments of every kind, cultivating a simple poetic language and holding fast to it is no easy task. But it must be acknowledged that this poet has accomplished it well. Even a passing glance at Sima Yari’s poems shows her to be a fresh and independent voice in Persian poetry. May this delightful presence be a blessing to all who love the Persian poetry of today.
— Najaf Daryabandari
A note on the short stories of Before the Event
I once quoted Ezra Pound: “Literature is news that stays news.” In that sense Before the Event can be called good writing. The book contains seventeen short stories. In all of them the author tells the story of a generation that is, as they say, “tempered” in the furnace of a fundamental upheaval, or that is unwillingly set on the path of a terrible tempering. The narratives are such that they surely cannot please everyone; we leave that judgement to the book’s readers. What is remarkable, though, is the prose of these narratives, which I believe everyone can enjoy, because it conveys to the reader the colour and the smell, the sound and the air, and the common desires of human beings. At one point in the story “Childbirth…”, when the main character, who is also the narrator, rises from the depths of despair and suddenly finds within herself the light of another world, the change in her state is rendered with such precision and delicacy that it compels admiration.
In the prose of these stories there is no linguistic showing off. The author takes the business of writing so seriously that she never wastes words merely for the sake of writing, or on the awkward tricks of current fashion. Yari’s narratives try to show the real people of a “self-sacrificing” generation, in love with the people, in a real period of our history. If you ask me what the task of prose is, I would say it is two things: conveying meaning and creating an effect. In this sense Yari’s prose has done its natural work. Precision and clarity in the meaning of words, their measured depth, and the importance of the subject matter were what the author had in mind. The language of the stories is not “grand”: to say what it means, it uses the very language in which natural people — that is, all of us, apparently — talk and communicate with one another, without sliding into the awkwardness of clowning. None of the words in these stories is empty of meaning; they are lively and active. In other words, Yari draws back a curtain on our contemporary history and takes the reader along to take part in an important event. Before the Event by the contemporary writer Sima Yari is an engaging and very readable book.
— N. D., 15 October 2007