Artist Profile
Mahtab Yaghma
Iran
Status: In Exile
Mahtab Yaghma is not the first renowned poet to hail from the small city of Nishapur, Iran. The celebrated ancient Persian poets Khayyam and Attar also trace their origins to this fertile plain, a region known for its rich turquoise mines that have supplied the world with the mineral for two millenia.
Growing up in Nishapur, the poet, lyricist, and women’s rights activist Mahtab drew inspiration from these classical predecessors. Buoyed by her father’s encouragement, she practiced writing in the classical Persian style—penning Masnavis, poems consisting of rhyming couplets, and Ghazals, odes that deal with love and loss. Once she became adept at these forms, she felt empowered to reinvent them: her poetry merges classical Persian themes—divine love, the universal experiences of yearning and grief—with modern Iranians’ concerns—particularly, women’s rights and freedom of expression. Her refreshingly honest and complex depictions of Iranian womanhood are grounded in the familiar wisdom and structures of the ancients.
A 21st-Century Poet
Mahtab is a poet of the people. Since 2017, she has shared her poems about love, femininity, and motherhood widely and publicly on social media. Her Instagram is a technicolor grid of vibrant self portraits—Mahtab in fields of flowers, Mahtab on the streets of Berlin— accompanied by her poignant and imaginative poems.
Although Mahtab is an activist, most of her poems are not explicitly political. Still, the Iranian government targeted and censored her simply for representing free will and female sexuality. “Topics such as love, sex, wine, and anything that relates to the individual freedom of men and women are forbidden or limited,” Mahtab said. This, the poet noted, is one of the only ways male and female artists are equal in Iranian society: both groups are harshly and indiscriminately censored by the government.
“I, as a female Iranian poet, see myself as a fighter whose weapons are words.”
Without knowing it, Mahtab evaded certain subjects for fear of retaliation: “For one who grows in a particular culture, a series of influences unconsciously affect the mind and poetic language,” she reflected. Mahtab only recognized this self-censorship years after leaving Iran. After being forced into exile by the Iranian government in 2020, Mahtab has moved from Iran to Turkey to Germany with her young son in tow. Amid all this upheaval, her lyrical poetry has remained constant, a means of self-expression for Mahtab and a source of inspiration for Iranians.
The Poetics of Protest
Despite these limitations, Mahtab has always used her poetic voice to advocate for women’s rights. Under Iran’s Islamic dictatorship, women are mandated to wear a Hijab and dress modestly, and they have limited rights in marriage, divorce, and child custody. Iranian women have continued to find creative ways to resist compulsory veiling and object to their second-class status. Some post pictures of themselves on Instagram without a Hijab; others share videos of women being harassed in public by Iran’s morality police. Mahtab writes poems—about women in love, about women who live freely. “I try to break the taboo to fight against these restrictions, to write about freedom and women's rights, to write about love and freedom. I, as a female Iranian poet, see myself as a fighter whose weapons are words,” Mahtab said.
The poet has also used her digital platform to organize and amplify political protests in Iran: in 2019, Mahtab and her compatriots took to the streets to protest the expensive price of gasoline. “Many were killed,” Mahtab recalled, “and many like me were injured.” Three years later, Mahtab was living in exile in Turkey, but the distance didn’t stop her from participating in the Woman Life Freedom protests ignited by the murder of 22 year-old Masha Amini. Throughout this months-long movement against patriarchal oppression and violence against women, Mahtab distributed vital information to her 35,000 followers. On her Instagram, she posted the identities and whereabouts of Iranian soldiers who were targeting protesters. Later, Mahtab took on a leadership role, “determining the timing and location of the protests” and “publishing and distributing images and reports in Neyshabur,” she said.
Living in exile afforded Mahtab greater safety and assurance to freely and forcefully criticize the Iranian government. Interspersed with her soft-smile selfies on Instagram are images honoring victims of the protests, comics satirizing Iranian political figures, and calls for action. “I am confident that subsequent protests, like recent movements in Iran, will be organized through these networks,” Mahtab remarked. Whether she is living in Iran or abroad, the young poet is sure to be a leading voice.
The Nostalgia of Exile
After fleeing Iran, Mahtab sought asylum in Turkey. While there, she was one of the five writers selected for ARC and Bard College’s Fellowship for the Center for Ethics and Writing Programs. This fellowship, which aims to support artists whose free expression is threatened due to their socially engaged art, “paved the way for me to get myself to a safe place,” Mahtab said.
Last May, Mahtab received a scholarship from PEN Berlin and migrated to Germany. Living in a free and democratic society has allowed her to “walk more freely in the field of art and poetry and find more ways to make progress for myself,” she remarked. Her time in exile has been a period of great creative and professional growth. She looks forward to collecting the poems that were censored in Iran and republishing them in their original Persian and translated into German.
Still, “life is difficult in exile and has its own nostalgia,” Mahtab commented. While she savors her new found safety and immunity, she clings to the hope that she will one day return to a free Iran. Her path may be filled with confusion and uncertainty, but one thing remains sure: she will continue writing and sharing her poetry.
Audrey Pettit, August 30, 2024. Audrey is the Editorial and Communications Intern at ARC. She holds a BA in English from Barnard College and is studying for her MA in English at NYU. Originally from Louisiana and Montana, she currently lives in Brooklyn.