Far From Home, Poet Fatemeh Shams Finds Sense of Belonging and a Voice at Penn

The cadence of her poem is almost lyrical as Fatemeh Shams, speaking in her native Persian, reads aloud to the audience at Kelly Writers House. But the tone is forceful as she nearly spits out the word repeated in each phrase: تبعيد, "exile."  

It is a word that resonates for Shams, an exile from Iran, who is now in limbo in the United States.

In her first semester at the University of Pennsylvania, Shams is an assistant professor of Persian literature in the Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations Department in the School of Arts & Sciences

​​​​​​​An award-winning author of three books of poetry, she is known for her writing about exile, refugees, loss, gender issues and women’s rights. 

“Those themes came out of tangible human experiences I had personally,” said Shams, who left Iran in 2006, going to England to study and teach. 

“Ten years of life in England is a very significant part of me,” she continued. “Those years were the most formative period of my life. It shaped my literary and academic profession.”

The recent executive order barring entry to the United States to refugees and immigrants has direct impact on Shams. Although the ban’s future is uncertain, she fears she could be stopped from re-entering if she leaves. Any plans to travel, including back to London to meet the deadline for her United Kingdom citizenship, are now on hold. 

“It doesn’t matter if you are a professor at one of the best universities of this country or a student or a migrant or a refugee. As long as you were born in Iran, you are accused of being a terrorist and therefore you are banned from living a normal life,” she told The Guardian newspaper on Jan. 30, the day the ban was imposed. “You are banned from seeing your loved ones. You are banned from travelling. You are banned from being a human being.”

Even days later, with the order in question, she was still shaken. 

“Both my life and my profession are at risk, and I am not sure what happens next,” she said, adding that she feels she is beginning another “long phase of suspension and uncertainty.”

“The only place that gives me a sense of belonging these days is Penn,” she continued. “My colleagues and friends at Penn have been very supportive throughout this phase. Penn is the only community to which I feel I belong at this very early stage, and I’m really grateful for that.”

Penn colleagues put together an event that featured Shams: “Poetry Un-Banned,” at Kelly Writers House, in February. More than 50 people came to hear poetry from the seven countries in the travel ban: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. 

Faculty and graduate students read poems aloud in the original language and in English translation. Shams read three of her poems in Persian, and Jamal Elias, professor of religious studies, read them in English: “Exile,” “The Refugee” and “Never to Fall Asleep.”

Two of the poems read were from Shams’ most-recent book of poetry, When They Broke Down the Door, translated into English by Dick Davis. Highly acclaimed, the book won the 2016 Latifeh Yarshater Award of the Persian Heritage Foundation in New York City.

Paul M. Cobb, chair and professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, said Shams brings “an authentic Iranian voice” to Penn. 

“Being a poet , she has an inherent sensitivity to the long tradition of poetry written in the Persian language,” he said. “She is able to offer expertise on the whole range of Persian literature that is unique.”

This semester at Penn, Shams is teaching “Persian Poetry in Translation” and “Literature of Modern Iran.” She is also creating new curricula, including “Persian Queer Literature,” the first of its kind at Penn, with a focus on gender and sexuality.

“Classical Persian literature has many examples and clues of homoeroticism and homosexual love that for political and ideological reasons have been kept hidden,” Shams said, noting that the language can hide gender because one pronoun can be used for both. 

​​​​​​​“There is a rich tradition of homoerotic literature from Iran that is often ignored or misinterpreted,” Cobb said. “I think it will be surprising to students who are unaware of the range of queer voices in Persian and in the Islamic and Persian literary tradition.”

​​​​​​​Another project involves poems in Iranian cemeteries. So far Shams has collected photos of more than 300 gravestones. She is reflecting upon the way poetry is used in Iranian society to constitute the identity of the Iranian people and their views on the notion of afterlife. 

“If you walk around the cemetery, you will see the gravestones are full of poems,” she said. “It is interesting to see how the living society is responding to death through poetry.”

Shams was born in Mashhad, Iran, in 1983, and started to write her first lines of poetry when she was 14. It was a poem that she wrote for her father, which pleased him, as his father was also a poet.

“But it was my mother who planted the seed of literature, and especially poetry, in me,” Shams said. “She had all banned copies of poetry books through which I became familiar with the modernist literary tradition.”

When she was only 17, she was awarded the silver medal in the National Olympiad of Persian Literature. She went to the University of Tehran, where she became engaged with the student reformist movement. 

“It was an important period of self-awareness and self-consciousness. I was getting to know my country better, my field better,” she said. “But it cost me my safety, and my future, in a way. I was targeted as an outspoken woman who crossed many lines.”​​​​​​​

​​​​​​​After graduating in 2006 with a degree in sociology, she went to London, to study at the Institute of the Study of Muslim Civilizations at Aga Khan University, receiving her master’s degree in 2008. She then began her doctoral studies in Oriental studies at University of Oxford. 

​​​​​​​At that point, she could no longer return to Iran. The 2009 government crackdown on the Green Movement, which led to her family being imprisoned, forced her into exile. 

“It was a turning point in my life,” she said. 

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​“It was very informative on the way my life turned out to be, as an Iranian woman and a poet,” she continued. “Exile, censorship, social taboos, displacement and the life of refugees are important themes in my poems, and they all reflect the life I lived throughout these years.”

She completed her studies at the University of Oxford, earning her Ph.D. in Persian literature in 2015. Before coming to Penn, she was a teaching fellow in Persian at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and Somerset House. 

“I came to Penn because I found Penn’s academic environment extremely enriching, very open and welcoming and diverse,” she said. “I feel very lucky that Penn gives me the opportunity of keeping both sides of myself active, as an academic and as a poet.”

 

Shams is the author of three books of poetry, 2016’s When They Broke Down the Door, 2015’s Writing in the Mist and 2013’s 88, Poetry Collection. Her next book, expected to be published in 2018 by the Oxford University Press is A Revolution in Rhyme: A Social History of Official Poetry in Postrevolutionary Iran.

Watch a video recording of the "Poetry Un-Banned" readings at the Kelly Writers House. 

Text and Photos by Louisa Shepard

 

Penn Professor of Persian Literature Fatemeh Shams 1