More Generous Than Soil (Brief overview of Tahereh Saffarzadeh's poetry book)

Tahereh Saffarzadeh was born in 1936 in Sirjan. She learned to recite and memorize the Qur'an in the local school at the age of six and ended her primary and secondary education in Kerman. She composed her first poem, "Poor and winter", at the age of 13, which was written on the school's wall newspaper. She received a bachelor's degree in English language and literature from Shiraz University. It was during this period that she realized that this field of study is not practical for the present and future of Iranian students. Shortly after her son's death, she went to England and then to the United States of America to continue her education. At the University of Iowa, she was accepted in the International Writers' Group and obtained MFA degree, which is a PhD-independent degree awarded to the undergraduate and graduate writers and artists who volunteer to teach at university in a literary or artistic field of study. Following acquisition of a special poetic language, and as a result of continuous study, she succeeded in new definitions and theories in the field of art, especially poetry. The first examples of such poems made her famous, respected among poets and writers of different countries of the world, and created mutual literary connections between her and poets and artists of other countries. On her return to Iran in 1970, the authorities agreed to hire her at the National University (Shahid Beheshti). Dr. Tahereh Saffarzadeh is the founder of translation education as a science and the organizer of the first workshop of "Practical Critique of Translation" in Iranian universities. After the victory of the Islamic Revolution, her book "Principles and Foundations of Translation" was selected as a lesson book that was useful in understanding the theories and practical critique of translation, especially for students majoring in translation. This book was used in translation workshops and played an effective role in the Iranian translation scene. A few years later, a book on this field was published in England. Tahereh Saffarzadeh also succeeded in introducing a new language and style of poetry due to her literary studies and research in the field of poetry which she named it "Resonance Poetry"; an intellectual whisper that, without worrying about weights and meters, triggers a movement in the reader's mind with clear metaphors. Knowing the cultural gap of the Islamic Movement, at the beginning of this movement, with the help of well-known and committed Muslim writers, she established a center called the "Cultural Center of the Islamic Movement". After the victory of the Islamic Revolution, Dr. Tahereh Saffarzadeh was selected by her colleagues at Shahid Beheshti University as the dean of the university and head of the faculty of literature. At the age of 24, she published her first work, "Rahgozar Mahtab" (The Moonlight Passerby). Her second collection of poems, entitled "The Red Umbrella", was published in English in the United States of America by the International Department of Writers at the University of Iowa, School of Literature. Then, with the publication of the collection of poems of "Resonance in Delta", "Dam and Arms", "Fifth Journey", "Movement and Yesterday", etc., she composed a special songs for the music of the contemporary Iranian poetry. She wrote poems with religious and anti-western plots in the Iranian literature. Her poems seem frozen at the beginning and they are devoid of softness for words, but for the person who contemplates on the words, they can be seen as the blossoms behind the spiritless words. Saffarzadeh wrote weightless poetry. She believes that insensitivity and vapidity of this period is the product of the false civilization of this century. Commitment, conceptualism, thought-oriented and religious beliefs are the main components of her poetry. In addition to being a poet, she is proficient in writing, researching, teaching, and translating, as she has translated the Qur'an into the three living languages of the world. Another fact is that Saffarzadeh is known as the founder of the "Scientific Critique of Translation" and the author of the "Specialized Translation" theory in Iran. Meanwhile, Saffarzadeh's name has been registered as one of the initiators of "religious modern poetry" and also one of the founders of the Islamic Propaganda Organization's artistic field in the history of the literature of the Islamic Revolution of Iran. Possessing literary knowledge and insight, familiarity with the millennial history of Persian literature, writings in the contemporary literature, complete mastery of English and familiarity with world literature have made Saffarzadeh popular in the minds and languages of literary society from the 1960s to the present. She has also gained the attention of the world literary and academic associations. In the two collections of "Allegiance to Awakening" and "Meeting with the Morning", Saffarzadeh achieves an independent and coherent style of language and simplification. In turning the poet away from complexity and tendency to the natural tone of speech in this period, perhaps components such as the Islamic Revolution have been influential. In a general sense, Saffarzadeh's poetry can be divided into three periods. Three periods that, although sometimes close to each other, are fundamentally different from each other. These differences are sometimes so obvious that it is felt that the poet is different.
The first period begins with her introduction as a poet with the book "The moonlight passerby" in 1962, and continues until the publication of the book The Fifth Journey"." The second stage of her poetry often addresses the common people of the society. She wants to say words that are no longer complicated, but they convey a simple meaning. In the third period, she reports on religious and moral concepts. But it should be added that her statement is significantly different from the previous period; he writes many poems with great care and obsession. She does not have any excitement or emotion, and she uses her former techniques in writing the poems. Saffarzadeh becomes somewhat relaxed in the third period of her poetry, she does not have the restlessness of the first period. In the third period, she achieves a kind of calm, neither the restlessness of the first period nor the excitement and sensuality of the second period. During this time, she allows herself to be more rational than anything else. She deals with issues as they exist.