Canadian Woman Studies / les cahiers de la femme (E-Journal, York University)

Kmet, Linda J.

Fly Away Home

Keeney, Patricia

104 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
Suddenly Tehran.  Gripping the neck. 
Flattening hair. Strangling. Pulling. Tugging. 
Fidgeting. A bounding woman bound.
I am so wrong … here. Who is wrong? What is 
right? Here.
At the bazaar with Mirza. Snaky halls, scented 
stalls, robes and hands. Long gauzy scarf. 
Old Persia woven in. Attempting fashion. 
Collapsing like a tent in hot wind. Silky black 
square slip/ slides off the curling novice 
nun I never was. Gentle scarf seller smiles 
indulgently. 
– I can’t keep it on. 
– Takes time.
Shamed by black eyed lush lipped beauties, 
cloth coyly draped to hide shape because god 
is a man. Standing in the hotel lobby trying to 
neutralize colour, cover flesh, annihilate flair. 
Aware it is not the men who look. It is the 
women whose disguise I compromise. Who get 
arrested for high stepping leather boots.
Hair clips amuse them, tracking wayward 
waves. Mirza lends soft hued pashminas to 
settle me.     No you don’t need the hijab. That’s 
professional. 
The professional women of Iran.
Six hundred years ago, a woman played 
dulcimer. Rich brown curls tumbling down. 
Resplendent in velvet rose and stitched pearl, 
she makes a music I can’t hear.
Mirza drives below mountains of snow 
between creamy concrete boxes in rows. Sun 
sparkled. Quiet and close, her own snug plot 
rises on narrow stairs windowed all the way 
up. Small, her place creates space, opening 
unexpectedly. A bed in the wall. Couch and 
desk and sweets with lime.  Wedding photos. 
Satin and lace. Another self mincing in strappy 
sandals, hair swept up. Diaphanous sundress 
clinging. 
From past to present. Clinging. 
Jars and cups and painted vessels full of 
wine. None for us. Nor closeness of the face. 
Nor languid touch where blossoms blow and 
latticed wind through fluted terrace goes. 
Nor pointing painted toes. Nor feeling all the 
fabrics of design against soft skin, nature’s 
every outline coloured in. 
Paradise then. Persian garden of delights.
Yesterday was hers. Today is what she has.
The Shah’s Parisian glitz turned shabby Soviet. 
Concrete bunkers for hotels. 
– I remember it elegant, shyly, she confides 
– when I was a schoolgirl. 
It is dangerous to remember. And necessary.
Shining domes circle. Their tendrils and stars 
glow lemon and lime. Dangerous to look. 
When trouble breaks she keeps saying 
revolution instead of demonstration. 
– A Freudian slip? 
Definitely. 
*
I’m here to see drama. It’s all on the streets 
where cell phones go dead. And we’re hurried 
from crowds. Where our translator’s friend 
is gunned down, because (runs the story) he 
looked like police and was mobbed. 
So muted on stage. Veiled and distant. 
Crackling Attic tragedy rigged and strung up 
for fierce masters, fanning the clerical flames.
News from the badlands. Rogue troupe. 
Something unusual happening. Long ugly taxi 
PATRICIA KEENEY
Out of Iran
VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 105
ride south of the city. Chasing beauty through 
bloody slaughter. Orphaned Afghan youths 
and angry street slogans. Whoever does the 
mothering owns the child. Whoever tends the 
land keeps it.
Two women for three acts talking. While the 
room fills up with sand. Their mouths, their 
eyes, their house, their lives — a choking 
desert dust.
Iranian drama
Intimate writhing twisted to song. A sobbing. 
A wailing. A soaring.
The grand ancient legend shrunk to a puppet. 
White wisdom of Rumi, head tilted and 
happy. Whirling to heaven, expecting all 
ecstasy. Dancing doll on invisible strings. 
*
Shops in the street of artisans sell intricate 
snowflake petals, blue on fragile copper plates. 
Miniatures of Isfahan. Tiny tiles from heaven. 
Dishes curved like boats to sail seas of saffron 
rice. Olives in walnut and pomegranate. 
– Enriched, she says. We call them enriched 
olives.
Shady night town sleeps in eerie ghost light, 
pale bulbs hissing secrets of ‘79 in tawdry 
yellow and green.  
– The traffic will kill you, Mirza warns, 
sprinting ahead of us, hospitably dodging 
deadly wheels. – Watch out for scooters. 
Probably police in plainsclothes. 
– Put away your cameras. 
What are we doing wrong? 
One of us doesn’t, grips a railing, is told to 
move on, doesn’t. South American, he knows 
the drill. 
– Our passports condemn us. British or 
American and they think we’re all spies. 
In deeply gouged gutters, full garbage bags 
wait for collection, wriggling with rats. 
*
Inside the folk restaurant, life is good. Stories 
told with tambour and flute, bouzouki and 
drum. Cultural sagas twist in their songs. 
Wrought male voice pitched high as blindness, 
arms wide to clap his people close. 
– I love you, Canada.
Then, the flat skin drum.  Ecstatic hands. 
Flying as far as our glaring tundra, as deep as 
the dreams of Darius. Brooding at the edge 
of explosion, curtain of hair flinging out, 
whipping back.
*
The most important questions in Mirza’s job 
interview for college teaching are religious. 
Were you at Friday prayers? What was the 
Imam’s message? She wants to do gender 
studies and look at plays by women in Iran 
but her male professors discourage her. 
– What about the female academics? 
– They are also passed over, cannot publish. 
Carefully she checks her camera. 
– Why? 
– I’m learning photography so I can document 
the ignored work of women in Iran, such as 
the hair removal technician or the washer of 
corpses.
*
Paradise now. Under the glistening mountain, 
rich green dreams. Glass boutiques, marbly. 
Balconies opening out, spilling down. Lavish 
escape routes lacing the slopes. Passports and 
bribes. Parties and dancing and alcohol. Keys 
to a kingdom of pleasure. 
Lost in snow. Treading muddy February roads 
where hikers trip and chalets grip each sharp 
brown peak, we suck on shiny crimson sheets 
of bitter berry. Bracing fun in a high dry sun. 
Urban millions, stranded at the palace gate 
106 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
outside bright tiles that tell such tales. Wishing 
for wind towers to cool summer fires. No 
glimmer of them in halls of gleaming mirror 
multiplying modern heads of state. 
Smiling on cue at the queen under glass. 
Shiny bedroom fixture among vintage TVs 
and old radios. Monarchs Plugged in. Tuned 
out. Listening for news from a vanishing life. 
Needing machines to change minds. 
Pausing at the shah’s thinking chair to wonder 
what was in his head?
what did he intend for us?
where are we now?
where is he
elegant son of his father, empty vessel filled 
with molten steel, shaping guns and tanks to 
fire off a lie so big, it cannot be denied.
A lie that freezes Sassanids and Achmaenids in 
matching curls and marching tunics. 
A lie that lopped off the wings of women 
in command and in control. At Persepolis 
once. Museum beauties now. Relief etched on 
concrete walls.
In the modern art museum, revolutionary 
propaganda and holy writ. Angering, 
consoling.   
Early delicate pitchers and curved thin spouts. 
History clear as glass. Reflecting. Shattered.
*
We enter a blue world. Tiled, painted, petalled, 
arched. Dark wood tables under stewing lamb, 
pestled into a paste of peas, parsley, lime. 
Tawny tea and vibrant rosewater pastries.
– It looks like my grandmother’s house, says 
Mirza, worries I won’t like this tradition.
– Things have improved because now a 
woman can divorce her husband if he has not 
paid her the housekeeping fee.
That’s enlightened, I say.
– But if he has beaten her for neglecting her job 
she cannot divorce him.
Enthusiastically, she goes on
– I had to get permission from my husband for 
a passport with unlimited travel.
Her fine young man beams intelligently at me.
 Did you give it?
– With my blessing!
Pale walls and gleaming wood. Carpet curtains. 
Wrought iron windows. Railings draped 
around eating.
– It is all they allow us to do. So we eat and we 
eat. Joyfully.
Try this and this and this.
With salty watered yogurt whitening our 
nights, our every meal and conversation 
converting us to calm acceptance, insisting we 
have health
Ingesting god.
*
In the hotel, hotly packing to leave. Wanting to 
stay.
If you have no unnecessary travel, warns the 
embassy… Necessary for whom? Whose need 
to be here? Who needs to be here?
Lured down to the lobby for good-byes.  Last 
conversations.
– How can we build a national theatre. Like you 
have in Canada? 
 First comes the freedom to fail 
– Such a pleasure to meet you. Poetry is my 
passion too. Don’t be upset for me. I am used 
to this prison. I grew up with the bombs. I have 
lived all my life in dark colours, not dancing
covering my hair.
Patricia Keeney’s poetry appears earlier in this volume.


Out of Iran

Murphy, A. Mary

102 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
“faraway.” Then the job in Montreal 
had come up. 
She knows she should start “invest-
ing” in the here and now. She is struck, 
as usual, by the emptiness of her large 
living room … a white leather sofa, 
a small table and the tv. Perhaps she 
should give a dinner party for people 
from work. That would mean buying 
a dining room set, unpacking her good 
dishes and finding her tablecloths. 
Whom would she invite and why, and 
could they even begin fill this vacuum? 
She doesn’t want small incremental 
measures of adjustment. What she 
wants is to scream, her voice piercing 
the sound-proofed walls. “Fools, hypo-
crites,” she wants to shriek. “You with 
your prayer rugs, crucifixes, jargon 
and silences! What do you really know 
about human suffering? What do you 
know about having to pick through 
shards and stones to construct a life 
you don’t want to live?”
Irene wants her thin hair to fly in 
unruly clouds around her blood-suf-
fused face, her veined eyes popping 
through facial distortions. She wants 
to be the very cartoon of a “Crazy 
Lady.” She wants to scrawl a letter in 
oily black ink, revealing to Phil the 
ugly but true passions that coursed 
through her during their many dispas-
sionate conversations: “How do you 
think I feel seeing what we built up 
together going to a bunch of eunuchs 
in Oregon?”
She won’t write to Phil. She knows 
he would not answer. His silence, she 
comprehends, will accompany all her 
brave efforts at living. It will be there 
for the duration. 
Greta Hofmann Nemiroff co-taught the 
first university-level Women’s Studies 
course in Canada in 1970. Over the 
years she has published numerous stories 
and articles in both English and French 
and also edited and written several books. 
She currently teaches English, Human-
ities and Women’s/Gender Studies at 
Dawson College in Montreal.
CAROLE GLASSER LANGILLE
Stir
I can hide like a thief
but the heart is a policeman at the crossroads
who forces me out in the open. Outside,
where the earth is seeded, day
cedes its place. Water has picked up
the last shred of light and carried it away. Hush.
Evening is a great brooding dog. I want to leave
and not be followed. If I know a psalm, it’s this: journey
is a type of singing, suffused with dance,
sufficing. The Sufis had it right. No one
is refused. The great lie is this: that voyage means
going. Each time I venture out,
I am always led inward, stumbling, hurtling,
as if falling were succeeding. Who holds up
whom? No one steals away.
Carole Glasser Langille’s fourth book of poetry, Church of the Exquisite 
Panic: The Ophelia Poems was published in October 2012. It was recently 
nominated for The Atlantic Poetry Prize.
A. MARY MURPHY
I don’t want to be an old crazy person
I don’t want to be an old crazy person
muttering around the streets
collecting cigarette butts
various brands
I don’t smoke
but what if I take it up
what if none of the butts are my brand
what if I don’t live somewhere warm
have to pick up stubby things
with mittens on my hands
being old will be bad enough
A. Mary Murphy’s poetry appears earlier in this volume.


I don't want to be an old crazy person

Hunter, Sarah

Portraits of Queer Artists

Adeniyi Ogunyankin, Grace

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 51
Dans “Green Onions,” Anabelle décrit 
la difficile expérience pour une maman 
émigrante de trouver du travail au 
Canada. L’auteure invoque le symbole 
des oignons verts pour définir sa sa vie 
de famille et l’amour d’une mère pour 
ses enfants. 
I could barely speak English when I 
arrived in Canada. But then I was only 
eight years old. Although many peo-
ple say I was too young to remember 
anything about moving to Canada, I 
know that I remember many things. 
Too many things are indelible in my 
mind. I especially remember that 
the first coherent thought I formed, 
unassisted, in English was “I hate 
green onions.”
Green onions? You may wonder. 
Yes, green onions. I can’t tell you too 
much. But I can tell you enough. We 
escaped my home country during the 
night and snuck into a neighbouring 
country so we could fly to Canada. 
I remember being scared. Petrified. 
Almost incapacitated by fear each 
time we passed one lifeless body 
after another decorating the roads. 
Hideous and unnecessary decora-
tions. Decorations that still give me 
nightmares to this day.
Green Onions
grace adeniyi ogunyankin
My parents, thankfully, had the 
foresight to start processing our visas 
to Canada before the war erupted. 
Their foresight was our saving grace, 
because that monster and his callous 
foot soldiers had my parents as their 
next target. My parents’ dissident 
voices had to be silenced.
My father never made it into Can-
ada with us. Fatal gun shot wound. I 
still carry the scar. Gun shot wounds I 
should say. To my soul and my heart. 
Mama wouldn’t let me say goodbye 
properly. She miraculously managed 
to maintain her wits as she continued 
to rush my little brother and I to safety. 
For me, a tidal wave of cold torrents 
hit my face. “Papa! Papa! Papa!” were 
my vehement reiterations for hours 
afterwwards. 
“Shh, Anabella. Shh,” was all 
Mama could say. “You must stay 
strong. You can’t let them win.”
Mama’s words were incomprehen-
sible to me. As incomprehensible 
as English was when we came to 
Canada. My young mind could not 
understand how I could still win. 
How could I stay strong when my 
world, as I knew it, began to crumble 
before my eyes?
Everything after that, until I got 
off the airplane, is all a blur now. The 
only poignant memory is that I was 
in mourning. I had retreated like a 
turtle into a shell I did not even know 
I possessed. 
The Canadian airport seemed 
chaotic, but it was a surprisingly 
welcomed chaos. It was different 
from the war-torn zone I had just left 
behind. We managed to get through 
immigration without too much has-
sle. Mama spoke what sounded like 
gibberish to the immigration man 
who I caught peering disconcertingly 
at me. I supposed I must have been 
a sight. With snot all over my face, 
red eyes, and a slightly shivering 
body reacting to the Canadian cold 
even though it was late June, I can’t 
blame him. 
By the time we got to the small, 
dingy, one bedroom apartment one 
of Mama’s friends had arranged for 
us, I was exhausted. But not too ex-
hausted to notice that Mama finally 
broke down and cried. Though her 
tears were silent, in my foggy haze, 
I could see her body shudder and I 
could hear her sniffling. 
The next morning Mama was all 
smiles. She kissed my little brother 
Jonathon and I good morning. The 
52 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
first words out of Jonathon’s mouth 
were, “Papa? Papa here?”
Mama, looked at Jonathon sadly 
and said, “Papa, not here. Papa, gone.”
It was Jonathon’s turn to cry. I 
think he was crying not because he 
comprehended the ramifications of 
Mama’s word. but from his lack of 
understanding and his frustration 
that he didn’t know where Papa was.
usually did when she went to teach 
at the university. She had borrowed 
a pair of jogging pants and t-shirt 
from her friend. 
Mama was gone for what seemed 
like forever. Pascalina was nice but 
I didn’t want her there. I behaved, 
however, and learned to say “hello,” 
and “My name is Anabella” by the 
time Mama came home.
When Mama came home, a revolt-
ing scent accompanied her. When I 
went to hug her, I couldn’t ignore the 
strange, noisome smell. I inquired 
about the stench and she explained 
that after her cleaning job she had 
gone to the field and spent most of 
the day there. She said being around 
onions all day would probably explain 
the smell. 
Mama took me aside and said, 
“Anabella, I don’t know how much 
you will understand right now, but 
you have to be brave. This here is 
our new life.”
“Mama, what about papa? What 
about Johanna and Mariem?” I whim-
pered as tears streamed, uninvited, 
down my face. 
Mama wiped my tears with her 
hands and explained to me why 
Papa had to die. She also promised 
me that I would see my friends 
Johanna and Mariem again, some 
day. I asked when, but she remained 
noncommittal. She told me that she 
had to begin working immediately 
because we needed money. I remem-
ber thinking that was strange because 
we never needed money before; at 
least not to my knowledge. She told 
me her friend’s daughter, Pascalina, 
was going to come and teach me 
English and babysit while she went 
to work. I wanted to resist and 
throw a tantrum, but I laid aside my 
childish inclinations when I caught 
the sorrowful look in Mama’s eyes. 
Somehow, I instinctively knew that 
I should comply. 
When Mama left for work that day, 
she didn’t look dressed up like she 
When Pascalina left, I finally asked 
Mama why she was not dressed the 
way she used to when she was teach-
ing. I remember saying, “I hope your 
students didn’t laugh at the way you 
were dressed.”
Mama smiled forlornly and shook 
her head. “Dear, dear Anabella. I don’t 
teach anymore. I clean houses now 
and starting tomorrow, I will also pick 
green onions at a farm.”
Mama must have seen the quizzical 
look on my face. She continued to 
explain our new situation to me. “Ana-
bella, this is a new country. Things 
are different over here. I just can’t be 
a professor here. But I am a Kudasi 
woman, and we Kudasi women are 
known for our strength. We persevere 
in the face of adversity. We will survive 
this challenge.”
“Kudasi?” I asked Mama.
“My maiden name,” Mama replied. 
“So, Anabella, these next few days, 
weeks, months, and years will be 
tough. But always remember that 
things will get better.”
“Yes, Mama” I said, even though I 
was unconvinced.
The next day, Mama donned her 
garb and went to work. Pascalina 
watched Jonathon and me.
From that day on, I never hugged 
Mama when she came home. The 
odour was just too horrible. In hind-
sight, I had probably psychologically 
associated the smell with my recent 
trauma and the way my life had just 
been turned upside-down. Mama 
used to bring home green onions every 
time she worked in field because she 
got them for free or for an incredibly 
low price. That was all she cooked 
with. Name anything that could 
be cooked and Mama found a way 
to make green onions the primary 
ingredient. 
One day, after a few months of 
English lessons, and after two days 
of a hunger strike, Mama asked me 
what was going on. I spoke to her, 
or maybe shouted, in clear, audible 
English, “I hate green onions!”
Mama was shocked. I’m not sure 
if she was astonished by my “fluent” 
English words or by my abhorrence 
of green onions. Mama didn’t respond 
right away. She just started crying. 
And she cried and cried. I was be-
wildered. I was caught off guard. I 
didn’t know what to do. All I could 
think to do was hug her. She smelled. 
That pungent green onion odour. 
But I hugged her anyway and I kept 
“This is a new country. Things are different over here. I just can’t be a 
professor here. But I am a Kudasi woman, and we Kudasi women are known 
for our strength. We persevere in the face of adversity. We will survive 
this challenge. These next few days, weeks, months, and years will be 
tough. But always remember that things will get better.”
VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 53
hugging her. I hugged her for what 
seemed like eternity until the green 
onion “perfume” became part of me.
Mama, through her sobs, told 
me how much she hated the smell 
too. She told me that every day she 
wanted to quit. But she couldn’t quit 
because of us, her children. She told 
me that it wasn’t easy finding a job as 
a foreigner in Canada. She told me 
that the type of work available for 
her now was either domestic work 
or farm labour. But she swore to me 
that one day, one day, she would find 
something else. She said that she was 
almost enticed by the job offer of one 
of her employers the other day. There 
was a lady whose house she cleaned 
who offered her a position as her 
children’s nanny because the other 
nanny quit. Mama said she almost 
took it because it meant she wouldn’t 
have to work so hard on the farm to 
pick the onions. She told me that her 
wages depended on the quantity of 
onions she picked and not the hours 
she worked. But when she calculated 
how much the woman was offering 
it was slave labour compared to her 
onion gig. Moreover, being a nanny 
meant that she would only get the 
Sunday off and she would have to 
find someone else to watch us.
I felt so selfish as I heard Mama’s 
story. I wiped her tears with my shirt 
and continued to hug her. 
“So you see Anabella, I hate green 
onions too. But the love I have for 
you and Jonathan is stronger than my 
hate. Never forget that. So forgive me, 
if I continue to bring this smell home 
but until I find something better it’s 
our best choice.”
I nodded. By the time Mama was 
done giving her speech, I also had 
tears streaming down my face. “I’m 
sorry Mama. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay baby, it’s okay,” whispered 
mama as she gently stroked my tear-
stained face.
Years later, I still remember that 
moment. Who would believe that 
green onions would have such an 
effect on my life? 
Mama eventually found a better job 
a year later, but she never found any-
thing stable as a professor, although 
she had adjunct positions here and 
there. Her employment was always 
precarious. Yet she managed to keep 
us fed and ensured Jonathon and I 
attended university. Jonathon got 
the job Mama never could get. He’s a 
tenured professor of Political Science.
Me? I write stories. I fight for im-
migrants’ rights. I decry the injustices 
of migrant labour policies. I don’t 
have direct experience. But I saw 
Mama live it. I saw the pain in her 
eyes. I saw her sometimes, when she 
thought I wasn’t looking, hold on to 
her back whenever she tried to bend 
over or do anything that proved too 
strenuous for her back.
Most importantly, I’ve found a way 
to find the good in green onions. I’ve 
found a way to make delectable meals 
with the help of green onions. 
I love green onions because Mama 
loved me.
Grace Adeniyi Ogunyankin is a Ph.D. 
candidate in the Women’s Studies pro-
gram at York University. When she’s 
not writing her dissertation, she loves 
to write short stories, plays and spoken 
word poetry.
SUSAn MCCASlin
Uttermost
I have been in my uttermost mettle
a mother, kind, unkind,
obsessive, crazed, outraged,
hungering for my child waif
to hunger for her womanhood,
to cup her day and drink.
Yet I too am Kore, a witness
in the land of the dark Lord,
and I mother with tumult and fanfare
or quietly as a reef
the self that, once marauder,
now is barely drawing breath,
ghosting the shore.
Susan McCaslin is a Canadian poet and Faculty Emeritus of Douglas 
College in Westminster, bc, where she taught English and Creative 
Writing for twenty-three years. She is the author of eleven volumes of 
poetry, including her most recent, Demeter Goes Skydiving (University 
of Alberta Press, 2011). The latter was a finalist in 2012 for the bc Book 
Prize (Dorothy Livesay Award) and the winner of the 2012 Alberta Book 
Publishing Award (Robert Kroetsch Poetry Book Award). Susan resides in 
Fort Langley, British Columbia.


Green Onions

Pourzand, Lily

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 11
The Extraordinary Life 
of a “Daughter of the Revolution”
lily pourzand
Voici une série d’instantanés de la vie hors de l’ordinaire d’une 
petite fille qui a connu la révolution islamique de 1979 . C’est 
l’histoire d’une vie qui fut interrompue par une révolution, 
une guerre, une violence personnelle et publique et politique 
, le tout suivi par une émigration forcée. C’est l’histoire d’une 
jeune femme sans statut au Canada. C’est aussi une histoire 
de survivance, d’espoir, de résistance, de rêves, de passion et 
d’engagement
One chilly evening in October 1978, I heard my grand-
mother’s strange and disconcerting warning: “Be careful! 
A revolution will highjack the ordinary life of a nation, 
generation after generation.” Although she lacked formal 
education, my grandmother was wise beyond her years. “A 
revolution will forever change everyone’s life and destiny, 
even those of lovely little Lily. Do not underestimate the 
reality.” My grandmother was talking to a couple of young 
revolutionary relatives who were brimming with the ex-
citement of their grandiose ideological fantasies, as were 
millions of other Iranian youth in those days. Though I 
was too little to digest or analyze the true meaning of her 
multilayered alarm, it is forever etched in my memory. 
Today, 35 years later and ten thousand kilometers away, 
I continue to feel the weight of her warning upon me. 
Somehow, I think, it will be with me so long as I am alive. 
At that time, the young revolutionaries did not under-
stand the message imbedded in my grandmother’s advice. 
However, they did realize it a few years later when one 
of them was jailed and executed by the revolutionary 
guards because she was a leftist and the other had to flee 
the country illegally to save her life. I, on the other hand, 
lived the life my grandmother had predicted on that cold 
evening. I lived the extraordinary life of a “daughter of 
the revolution.”
I had a flourishing childhood brimming with nourishing 
love. I grew up surrounded by vibrant colours, perfumes 
and melodies, and by a loving, hopeful, cheerful, and 
hardworking family. It all changed in the fall of 1978 
when I turned three. I was the youngest member of an 
educated middle-class Iranian family who lived in the heart 
of Tehran. I loved my mother’s feminine and colourful 
dresses and shoes and my father’s elegant tie collection. 
In those difficult pre-revolution days of fall 1978 and 
winter 1979, nobody had time to pay me any mind; the 
important political changes happening outside the house 
over-shadowed the life within. Everybody was busy either 
with pursuing their ideology or trying to seek shelter 
from the pre- and post-revolutionary storms. Overnight, 
I became an adult when the revolution became the most 
important subject of the family discussions at home. I was 
no longer the same spoiled, cheerful, talkative, emotional 
and sensitive little girl as the talk of the revolution crept 
into our home. In turn, I became a quiet, thoughtful, de-
fensive, reserved and insecure child. I was a silent observer 
who was learning to understand the complicated political 
language of the adults. I tried to train myself to interpret 
their heavy talk as it applied to my little world. However, 
I was unable to develop the same ability to talk to them 
in their complicated political adult language. So I began 
to listen more and talk less. 
I reacted to my internal fears, insecurity and anxiety 
by sinking deeper into silence, crying heavily but quietly, 
withdrawing from socializing or playing with other kids 
and also not showing interest in children’s games, toys or 
12 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
even books. I could understand that I was disappointing 
my parents with my sad and passive attitude but I could 
not help it. I remember that when my childhood mind 
could no longer overcome my anxiety, I would quietly 
crawl into my mother’s arms covered in my cold sweat. 
My mom usually cuddled and kissed me until I fell asleep 
in her arms. 
In February 1979 the Islamic regime took control of 
the country and a month after its victory, mandatory hijab 
for Iranian women was suggested on the anniversary of 
International Women’s Day, March 8, 1979. When my 
grandmother heard the news from my mom, she sank 
into the corner of our kitchen and mourned for hours. 
“You young women do not understand how it feels 
when male members of the society decide for your body 
and tell you what you should wear!” She kept repeating: 
“You just don’t understand what it means....” She was a 
66-year-old woman who had practiced hijab all her life. 
Covered in her usual colourful scarf she mourned the call 
for mandatory hijab, wiping her tears with the corner of 
her scarf. “I do practice hijab and I respect anybody who 
chooses to practice it. But I have never told even my own 
daughter what to wear…. Now, a bunch of men who call 
themselves the leaders of the revolution dare to assume 
they can tell my daughter and granddaughter to cover up!” 
My grandmother repeated these words almost a hundred 
times that day and cried even harder. Finally, she yelled, 
“You educated, intellectual and modern women must do 
something before it is too late. Otherwise, tomorrow this 
little Lily will be mandated to cover her hair and body! I 
am telling you right now, that day is not far.” My name 
had a way of creeping into the hot revolutionary debates. 
No matter how hard I tried, I could not picture my mom 
or myself in hijab. So I ran to my grandmother’s closet 
and grabbed a scarf that was very big for my tiny head 
and instead covered my whole body. I fixed it on my head 
and tied it tightly under my throat. I ran to the kitchen to 
show o my grandmother and mom and make them laugh. 
Instead, they both got very angry. My grandmother pulled 
the scarf from my head and said, “You will never do this 
again!” My mother said, “Darling, this is not a joking 
matter.” I was shocked. My grandmother had never been 
that harsh with me. I ran to my room and quietly cried. 
Two days later, the three women of my family, grand-
mother, mother and I, were on the streets of Tehran to 
demonstrate against mandatory hijab alongside thousands 
of other women and men. My grandmother was in her 
black veil hijab that covered her from head to toe, protesting 
against forcible hijab. My mother wore a wool skirt and 
a lemon yellow shirt. I was in my purple dress and white 
jacket. I was very excited to be in a demonstration. All of 
a sudden, I heard the loud screeching noise of motorcycles 
approaching the crowd. Men on the motorcycles were 
yelling “YaaRoosari, YaaToosari,” meaning “Either scarf on 
the head or a blow to the head.” The demonstrators yelled 
back, “NaRoosari, Na Toosari,” meaning “Neither scarf on 
the heads nor a blow to the head.” The demonstration 
was not against hijab but rather against enforcing hijab 
on every woman of the society regardless of her choice. 
Iranian women, who played such an important role in the 
victory of the revolution, were now the first targets of the 
ideological regime. My grandmother was right!
The mandatory hijab was not enforced right away due 
to the social resistance but within two years women could 
no longer enter government buildings without hijab. 
Soon thereafter, women were prevented from presenting 
publically without hijab. “Death to women with no 
Hijab,” became a common slogan written in bold letters 
on the walls throughout the city. I would no longer see 
my mother in her colourful dresses; her closet became a 
place of refuge for me from the darkness surrounding me. 
I sheltered myself in her closet and watched the symbols 
of her feminine expression gather dust in the darkness. 
Indeed, my grandmother was right! A few years later, in 
fall of 1982 when I started elementary school, her friend 
had to sew me a dark, thick uniform that covered me from 
head to toe, as regulations mandated. I was so small and 
it was very difficult for me to learn to maneuver while 
wearing that uniform. 
On my first day, my grandmother took me to school. I 
was crying so hard that I could not keep my scarf properly 
tied on my head. I could see tears in my grandmother’s 
eyes as she sneakily wiped her face with the corner of her 
colourful scarf. After we lined up to go to our respective 
classes, the school principal, who only had a small triangle 
of her face visible from behind her tightly held chador, 
gave us a long lecture that became a part of my nightmares 
for many years. She said, “You are six years old now and 
considered as women. For that reason, you are not allowed 
to take off your scarves inside the school or even inside 
your classes where only females are allowed. You will have 
your scarves properly tied all day long. Remember, if you 
expose your hair to any man except your immediate family 
members, you will be tortured in hell after your death for 
all of eternity. You will be hung from each strand of hair 
that you make visible while fire is set under your feet. 
You will burn to death, then you will be resurrected and 
the same story will repeat itself. So be careful!” I was so 
frightened that I could not stop the flow of tears. I begged 
to go back home but alas, I had to stay. 
Later, not having hijab or not having proper hijab 
was identified as a criminal offense in the new Criminal 
Code and Iranian women were at risk of imprisonment, 
flogging or being fined for not observing proper hijab. My 
VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 13
grandmother died in the summer of 1984 still sporting her 
colorful scarf as she lay on the icu bed of the Tehran Clinic. 
At the same time, two blocks away from that hospital, 
in the Moral Committee of Vozara, women were being 
sentenced to flogging, imprisonment or heavy fines for not 
observing proper hijab. And, as grandmother predicted, I 
was arrested and taken to the Moral Committee of Vozara 
for not having a proper hijab for the first time when I was 
only 16. The Moral Committee judge sentenced me to 
be flogged, which was finally replaced with a huge fine. 
of pride. I still remember it well, all the many familiar or 
unfamiliar dead faces with one or two eyes opened, plastered 
on the front page of the newspaper for the world to see. 
Things got even worse during the rest of the 1980s. 
The Iran-Iraq war started in 1980 and lasted eight years, 
taking millions of lives from both sides. As a child I was 
introduced to a new notion of life, death, and survival. 
Just like millions of other children of war, I learned to 
survive the air strikes, the rocket attacks and the missile 
launches. My family life was also tumultuous. In 1986, I 
A few weeks after the revolution in 1979, the Iranian 
nation saw the images of the perforated, bloody bodies 
of those who were executed due to their relation with the 
former regime. Everyone with a high level position in the 
previous administration was at risk. Even my father, a well-
known journalist who also worked as the communication 
coordinator for the Education Minister, was at risk. Many 
family friends had disappeared. We later learned that they 
fled the country illegally and sought asylum somewhere 
in Europe, or, if they were lucky, in the United States. 
Desperate to continue his work, my father began an 
underground life. Every night, he anxiously waited for 
my mother to return home with that day’s newspapers. 
It became a routine for my parents to skim the bloody 
pictures published in the newspaper so as to identify a 
friend, a family member, a co-worker or someone that they 
knew. If there was a familiar face among the many faces, 
then the night would turn into a private memorial service. 
One such evening, my mother came home, clutching 
a newspaper in her hand and pale in the face. My father 
immediately realized something terrible had happened. 
He grabbed the paper from her and quickly glanced at 
the front page before he collapsed. Mrs. FarrokhrooParsa 
had been executed. She was the Minister of Education, 
the first female cabinet member in Iran, the first woman 
in the senate, and my father’s boss. She was the person 
who mandated that all K-12 students must receive free 
nutrition. She was the sort of secular person who would 
fast and wear a small colorful scarf on her head during the 
month of Ramadan. The picture of her dead body smeared 
in blood, with one of her eyes still open, was published 
on the front page of the national newspapers as a symbol 
witnessed my father’s arrest by three armed revolutionary 
guards who refused to give us any information about his 
charges. We lived with the constant threat of never seeing 
him again. In 1988, I turned 13 and the war came to an 
end. However, soon after, mass executions began in pris-
ons across the country. The main targets of this round of 
executions were leftists who had helped the revolution a 
decade ago. Now the revolution was taking their lives. They 
survived the first wave of the executions in the early months 
following the revolution but re-mained in prison. Now, 
after many years of imprisonment, their turn had come. 
Their blood had to be spilled for the revolution to go on. 
In less than a month, thousands and thou-sands of leftist 
prisoners were hanged in Tehran and other cities. I was 
watching this spectacle in silence through my teenage eyes. 
Later, during the ’90s, people like my parents who 
survived the first 15 years of political violence following 
the revolution and yet did not flee the country, carefully 
volunteered to begin rebuilding the Civil Society. When I 
was admitted to law school in 1994, a new wave of threats 
began. However, this time they only targeted the activists, 
lawyers, writers and journalists, who were trying to use 
what minimal arena was available to voice their resistances. 
Both my parents’ names were on this blacklist. We expected 
that either or both of them would be murdered randomly 
on the street, at home or office at any moment. I came of 
age at a time when my life and privacy were targeted by 
the Ministry of Intelligence because I was the daughter of 
two activists. I began voicing my resistances by publishing 
a controversial report about the dark colour of the manda-
tory hijab in Iran. I did not question the mandatory hijab 
but asked why it had to be so dark. Surely the lighter and 
When my grandmother heard the news from my mom, she sank into 
the corner of our kitchen and mourned for hours. “You young women 
do not understand how it feels when male members of the society 
decide for your body and tell you what you should wear!” She kept 
repeating: “You just don’t understand what it means....” 
14 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
revolution will highjack the ordinary life of a nation, 
generation after generation.”
Lily Pourzand was born and raised in Iran. She migrated to 
Canada in 1999 and obtained her Women’s Studies degree 
from York University in 2006, and then her ll.m. with a 
special focus on Gender Equality and Law from Osgoode Hall 
Law School in 2010. She works as a Women’s Individual and 
Transitional Support Counsellor at the Women’s Centre of 
York Region. She has lived in Toronto since 2000.
more cheerful colours would cover a woman’s body just 
as well! When the report was published, I was called to 
the university’s Moral Committee and received a written 
warning that I would be suspended if I continued my 
activity. They spied on my personal life and entered into 
the most private spheres of my life. I was used as a tool 
to put more pressure on my parents so as to stop their 
work. To me, the guards’ invasion of my private life was 
like physical and emotional rape. That very day, I made 
up my mind to leave my country as soon as I could. From 
that moment on, I was no longer the silent observer, but 
rather a silenced but angry rebel. 
I left my homeland just two months after my graduation 
in November of 1999. I came to Canada with a visitor visa 
and two thousand dollars in my pocket. I landed in my new 
home, Canada, where I had no friends or acquaintances 
or any plans in my head except that I would not go back 
to my homeland until I secured a life in a democratic 
country where my private life did not become a tool in 
some political game. I survived the hardships of living as 
a young non-status woman and was used as cheap labor 
for many months. Meanwhile, my mother was arrested 
six months after my departure due to her women’s rights 
activities. While in prison, she developed an aggressive 
breast cancer. Overnight, while I had no roof over my 
head or life security in Canada, I became the voice of 
advocacy for her abroad. Finally, with the help of inter-
national pressure, my mother was permitted to leave Iran 
in September 2001 in order to receive better treatments 
in the United States. She has been living there in exile 
ever since. Soon after her departure, in November 2001, 
my 70-year-old father was kidnapped by the secret police 
and kept in secret and undisclosed prisons for months. He 
was tortured and forced to confess to crimes he had never 
committed. Later on, in spring of 2002, he appeared on 
the Iranian state television. He had lost over 40 kilograms 
and we barely recognized him. On the television, he con-
fessed to whatever his interrogators had wanted him to. 
We never saw him again as he was not allowed to leave 
the country and we were not allowed to go back for safety 
reasons. Finally, in April 2011, he ended his life at the age 
of 80 by throwing himself off the sixth-floor balcony of 
his apartment in Tehran where he was under house arrest. 
I, Lily, a “daughter of the revolution,” lived and will be 
living the life my grandmother predicted for me 35 years 
ago. I survived a revolution, a war, political violence in 
public and private and a very difficult migration. I lived an 
extraordinary life just like thousands and millions of other 
children who lived and grew up amidst revolution, war 
or political conflicts around the world. Many of them do 
not have the ability to tell us about their lives and survival.
I will always remember my grandmother’s words: “A 
Renee noRman
Dreaming Grandchildren
I look at those sweet faces
your granddaughters
a photo
I know how fortunate they are
your devotion lit
by the ways you support women
you shine more than a camera lens
on feminisms
and I remember my daughters
vibrant toddlers
joy and chaos
different now of course
still flashes of opalescent colors
some temporary darkness
I am dreaming my own grandchildren
into focus
hazy visions
small dear ghosts
in the space between
note to daughters: no pressure, understood?
I have dresses, little ponies, flaming room
in my mother’s heart
ah, granddaughters!
gender is not an issue
I promise
my two miscarried babies
taught me patience
how to release plans
like so much gossamer
some day I will show photos too
Renee Norman’s poetry appears earlier in this volume.


English

The Extraordinary Life of a Daughter of the Revolution

Tihanyi, Eva

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 87
1
It all begins with the mouth,
but I don’t know this; for a time
remain convinced it begins with the eyes
which watch me play my little blood game,
the knife thrown down between my fingers
as they lie spread on the wooden table. 
Your friends say that art should be convulsive,
and so it is, the vulgar rose
that masquerades as your heart.
Your mouth will be a later cruelty.
2
The first time you come to me
I take surreptitious pictures of you.
They remain my secret, these negatives
which I never print.
In my drawer you will remain
black and white reversed, forever radiant.
Your image: caught lightning.
3
You note my hands, their slenderness,
long tapering fingers, carefully manicured nails
in various colours – blue, green, red, black – 
whatever my mood that day.
You come to see me as a clawed and clawing 
creature:
Sphinx, phoenix, always something hungry.
You are afraid you might fall under
my unpredictable nails, that I will tattoo you
with invisible private hieroglyphs
while you press versions of my various selves 
into paint,
hold them there forever, my artist jailor.
4
Mougins, 1937.
The world still light, the darkness on the horizon
not yet arrived.
We play at poetry, pass our words
back and forth on hotel stationery, each 
determined to outdo the other.
It is forever hot noon, the sun at its zenith,
the time when our shadows are smallest.
I cage you under the bamboo awning,
create you in stripes, light and dark alternating.
At night like spies
we watch each other sleep,
own each other best then.
5
The heaviness of all the unsayable things.
How do I stop considering you?
How does one feign indifference to the sun?
6
1941.
Although the world turns on itself, feeds
on its own entrails, its numerous and lavish 
horrors,
we abide.
EVA TIHANYI
The Love Song of Dora Maar
88 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
My fingers boast dark talons sharp with rage.
You paint me with a black cat
on my right shoulder, your pagan goddess
on a soon-to be-toppled throne.
Private Lilith, sorceress, terrifying muse.
7
Exacerbated summer,
ferociously lit.
You use me up.
I am the fuel, consumed.
Those who look too closely
will burn their eyes.
In the perfect sun:
my heart a seed, concentrated and silent;
my skin open to the light that bores in
through every pore.
Each day I am a darker version of myself,
a latent explosion, a small star gathering inward.
8
You paint me as a bird.
You paint me ravaged by the Minotaur.
You paint me as angles.
You paint me in pieces.
You paint me in tears.
I am a prism
through which you break
into all your magnificent colours.
9
Later I will say, After Picasso, God. 
For now: one and the same.
But beware, my gargantuan little hero:
I channel the wounded wolf
and there is appetite in all my actions.
Everything eats, one way or another.
Eva Tihanyi has taught at Niagara College since 1989 and lives in Toronto and Port Dalhousie (St. Catharines, 
Ontario). This poem first appeared in Flying Underwater: Poems New and Collected, her seventh book of 
poetry. She has also published a collection of short stories, Truth and Other Fictions (Inanna 2009).
Flying Under Water: Poems New and Selected
by Eva Tihanyi 
Anne Michaels calls Eva Tihanyi’s poetry “moving and powerful.” Susan Musgrave calls it 
“very accomplished, beautifully crafted.” Now, almost 30 years after her first book was pub-
lished in 1983 comes Tihanyi’s latest collection, Flying Under Water: Poems New and Select-
ed, which brings together the best of her previous six volumes plus a group of new poems. 
Flying Underwater is “…Another outstanding offering … by Eva Tihanyi. Tihanyi’s 
poetry is often wise, with lines you want to read aloud in order to savour both their 
wisdom and their beauty. Her keen eye (she also practices photography) is attuned 
to the dance of desire, vulnerability and need in relationships.”
—Herizons Magazine (Summer 2013)
www.inanna.ca
inanna.publications@inanna.ca
inanna publications


The Love Song of Dora Maar

Foisy, Christina

10 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
about the guest editors…
Frances Beer, Professor Emerita, York University, has 
her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto Centre for 
Medieval Studies, and taught in York’s Department of 
English from 1971-2010. Her areas of specialization 
are Medieval Women, Nineteenth-CenturyWomen 
Writers, and Children’s Literature. She has been a 
member of the Editorial Board of Canadian Woman 
Studies since 1984. Her books include Women and 
Mystical Experience in the Middle Ages, a translation of 
Julian of Nowich’s Revelations, and a novel, Pilgrims 
in Love.
Brenda Cranney has a Ph.D. in in Sociology from York 
University and has worked extensively on a variety 
of women’s issues with numerous ngos in Canada 
and India. A scholar, activist, and photographer, she 
continues to be active in a number of women’s orga-
nization and has taught at York University, George 
Brown and Humber College. She is the author of 
Local Environment and Lived Experience: The Mountain 
Women of Himachal Pradesh. 
Andrea Medovarski teaches in the Transition Year 
Programme at York University. She has written and 
published on a wide range of Canadian and diasporic 
women writers, inlcuding Dionne Brand, Andrea Levy, 
and Tessa McWatt. She is currently working on a book 
manuscript about the second-generation children of 
immigrants in black diasporic women’s writing.
CHRISTIna FoISY
mary-Violet Beaulieu 
a New Brunswick crown of seaweed
dried in your chest: a memory
that forgot its weight in water
potatoes boil differently here—
they spit in the kitchen
gurgling and seasick—
 
gentlemen, as mermen, swim through
thoughts: treading oceans like dogs
towards rubber industries and work
you sit like driftwood—adrift
on catalogued furniture
purchased from The Bay
cracked knuckles, your bare hands are
lobster carcasses married to
day-old dishwater
and you’ve become the battle-axe
that chops broccoli heads
while watching children
who turn into seagulls—
gullets—wailing birds
that become babies
running in streets—their
feet smearing noodle
tentacles
you swear it is the sound
of them smacking
jellyfish against the rocks
Christina Foisy’s previous work, both creative and 
academic, has appeared in poiesis: A Journal of Art 
and Communication, The Journal of the Motherhood 
Initiative, and the WomanMade Gallery (in Chicago). 
She is currently a Ph.D. student at York University in 
Humanities, and student of the Toronto New School of 
Writing.
Front Cover Artwork
Cheryl Braganza, “Carte Blanche,” 2012, acrylic, 16 x 20".
BackCover Artwork
Cheryl Braganza, “Seeds,” 2010, mixed medium, 16 x 20".
Artist statement: “My wish is that my art engages people, 
challenges their assumptions about women, provokes critical 
thought with respect to diversity and stir their humanity—all 
with the eventual goal of promoting harmony and peace.”
Cheryl Braganza, artist, writer, cancer-survivor, was born 
in India, studied in Italy and the United Kingdom, lived 
in Montreal since 1966 and has painted for the past 45 
years. Chosen Montreal Woman of the Year in 2008 by the 
Montreal Council of Women, her acrylic paintings with 
vibrant colours and imagery echo peace, hope and infinite 
renewal. She collaborates closely with organizations that 
focus on human rights. Convenor for Culture and Heritage 
for the National Council of Women of Canada, she was 
recently appointed President of the Women’s Art Society 
of Montreal.Visit her website at: <www.cherylbraganza.
com>. Email: <cheryl@cherylbraganza.com>.


Mary-Violet Beaulieu

Martonfi, Ilona

74 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
ILONA MARTONFI
Irises in Fire
35 rue Lépine,
Saint-Calixte
Lanaudière
wild raspberries
an oak tree
red trillium
meadow grass
irises in fire —
blue sky
sound of bullfrogs
wood cabin
under the pines
cerises sauvages
choke cherries,
cement steps remain
land 100 by 200 feet
ten minutes from the village
that day in October,
six houses burned down,
gravel road
Lac des Artistes
remember,
a man beats his wife,
children haul
spring water
running from the mountain
by a boulder
raccoons
sifting through rubble and ashes
acrid smell of timber —
Ilona Martonfi is the author of two poetry books, Blue 
Poppy (Coracle Press, 2009) and Black Grass, (Broken 
Rules Press, 2012). She is producer of the Yellow Door 
& Visual Arts Centre Readings, co-founder of Lovers & 
Others and winner of a qwf 2010 Community Award.
LAURA MCLAUCHLAN
So We Try Again
For a long time we talk about men:
“I have met Leonard Cohen,” says D.,
who calls, with a drink, late at night
“. . . a small man until he speaks.”
She says that the out of print Norman Levine
was a sad man with a very sick wife.” He wrote
Canada Made Me and then lived in England
writing while his family (near) starved.
My white gloves are well trimmed with black
I soak them attempting to wash off the dirt
with sloughed skin. My own
stories escape and run
Yarmouth Road.
How I love/hate the grief
that I keep.
In this dark we seem
braided in dream
where our stories turn to fine ash and
buried bone. We need      hope
so we try again
we sit      with spring rumoured
inside fragrant steam. We are two women
leaning into a table for coffee
and whatever our own words can do. Speaking 
now
of ourselves, we laugh    drawing our breath.
Your eyes catch mine. You speak as a sister
of that other country
you forbid me to name in this poem.
For two decades Laura McLauchlan worked as a sessional 
instructor in the English Department at York University. 
She is currently writing a murder mystery set on the South 
Shore of Nova Scotia.


Irises in Fire

Kadar, Marlene

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 15
maRlene KaDaR
my Grandmother only
My Grandmother only drank Pride of Arabia 100% arabica coffee in the brown
bag from Loblaws 1950-1965 @ 93 cents a pound.
My grandmother only used Ivory soap. It floated in the tiny Gort Avenue bathtub
and that is how we knew it was pure.
My grandmother had machine gun filings in her skin from lucrative wartime work
in the munitions factory and the factory doctor said: “use Noxzema on your face,
only Noxzema.” 
She was one of 40,000 women who made bombs for B52s 
and sten guns.
Now you are getting it.
My grandmother only used Noxzema skin cream on her face.
After the war my grandmother wrapped her hair in pastel coloured kerchiefs. 
We picked her up at the steel factory in a grey Hudson at 3:30, when the shift bell
howled. We were never late.
Then she unwrapped her hair as we drove to J. I. Case company on Vickers
Road where we were the janitors.
We ate supper in my grandfather’s cosy office, the boiler room, and then we set
out to clean, sweep and polish desk after desk after desk, my little brother and I
pretending we were the bosses.
My grandmother’s name was Marcela, not Marcella.
Marlene Kadar is a writer in Toronto, and a Professor in Humanities at York University. She is the editor of the 
poetry collection, The Missing Line.


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