Some of Suheir's poems were hard to fully understand. They were very deep thinking, almost so deep and vague it was hard to connect it to anything. Yet, it was so insightful, so wise, that it was a powerful poem. Her poem, "What I Will", talks about how she will not follow the expectations of the repressive goverment. The way how she is so independent makes her quite like Marjane. The way that she says that she will not follow the war drum shows that she will not follow the war obssessed goverment. "I will not dance to that beating!" They both see the stupid nature of the violence which takes over the world today. "Which male child shall die today?" After living through the war, Marjane hated the violence which takes over Islam so much. Like Marjane's mother once said: "You are to much of a free-minded spirit to live in this country."(That may not be the exact quotation, but the idea stays the same.) They're both very smart and free women. "
The part that struck me so hard about the two stories is that both authors have suffered so much poverty. When we first started reading Persepolis, I had a hard time believing that people live like this. I haven't heard Suheir's story in integrity. But the way that she tells her story you can tell that she has been through so much. It's amazing how so many people live in poverty today.
Another part of both the poems by Suheir and Persepolis that struck so much is about how honest they are about the troubles that the authors went through in their countries. Presepolis tells all about Marjane's life and how she has had so much adversity through out it. I think that it must have been a hard experience for her to talk about her whole life story after it has been such a long journey . It's the same case of the poems by Suheir. She tells her stories with such passion, such insight, that it brings up emotions in so many people. How they're able to tell such sad stories in such creative ways is beyond me.
PART II
Suheir Mahammad's poetry in some ways describes a revolution. But it's not the kind of revolution that we usually think of. When we think of a revolution, we think of the kind if thing that just happened in Egypt as well as other countries within the middle east. The people of the country overthrowing the government, or over coming some kind of obstacle that faces the country. It's like the kind of revolution which happened in Persepolis. How they took a kind of government and changed it into a oppressive, almost bully like government. It wasn't what the people wanted, but that's how the revolution went. But in Suheir's poem "Def Poetry", she is really talking about a different kind of revolution. How people changed after the attack on the Twin Towers. How the people of the U.S. turned against the people of Iran, Iraq, and other middle eastern countries. How they blamed the many lives that were lost after that day on a few countries. How any middle-eastern man in an airport could be considered a threat. That act caused a revolution of how people thought.
In the case of what Suheir is saying a revolution is, a revolutionary could be considered one of the men that took down the Twin Towers. They caused a whole new era in the way of how people thought. A revolutionary could also be considered the man who helped bring down a plane that would have killed many people. Having lost so many people, so many heroes like that, could change so many people's opinion. They caused the revolution. The way that Marjane describes revolutionaries is a little bit different, but in all reality they are the same. They caused the revolution. People like Khommeni who brought up a new era.
Suheir's explanation of war really shows both sides of the battles. She cares about her brothers who are in the war. But whenever she something about them, people only want to know what side they are on. They don't care that they are humans. That they might die within the next day. All they care about is that the people who they think did something bad are punished. It's what war does to people. It makes them desperate for revenge against an enemy. Sometimes they don't even know who the enemy truly is. We can see this side of people come out in Persepolis as well. After all of the bombing and shooting and killing in Iran, Marjane and her family just want a revenge of some sort. They're against people like the Shah and the Guardians of the Revolution who make their life worse. It's all part of what wars and revolutions truly do to people.
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