Lyrical voices hail Iranians from overseas

From the house we built

With blood and soil

To the road on which

The moonlight procession

Flies forth on their boat

Of shooting stars

It is a pity you did not wish

To stay here with us

The poet had crafted those words so long ago. Flush from the victory of a People's Revolution in Iran that ousted a repressive monarch for a bearded cleric who spouted promises of freedom and quality, Partow Nooriala all too soon came to believe that the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had deceived them.

Ever so briefly, the poem mourns, Lady Liberty had arrived at her oppressed homeland of Iran in 1979. But, within a year after the revolution, she had vanished. The ayatollah banned opposition parties and shut down newspapers. His theocracy ordered women into the hijab and enforced Islamic family law that gave men greater rights to divorce, marry and hold custody of children.

So Nooriala and her family eventually left, bringing their dreams to California instead.

Now, nearly three decades after that people's movement, she and her daughter Shahrzad Sepanlou have become overseas heralds of another one. Nooriala, a poet, and Sepanlou, a singer, are lifting their voices in the diaspora to support their people's freedom once again.

"I could never think that in my lifetime I would see people come out into the streets twice," Nooriala says over Persian tea in her tidy Studio City condo.

Farzaneh Milani, a professor of women's studies and Persian literature at the University of Virginia, said women have long been a force of resistance against Iran's repressive governments and male dominance. The most famous artistic voice in Iran today is female poet Simin Behbahani, but amid the Iranian diaspora in the United States other female poets and writers, working in both Farsi and English, have emerged, she said.

"There is a long history of Iranian women resisting and asking for their rights," Milani said. "Partow is an important part of that. The tenacious strength of her work makes her a voice to be listened to."

Nayereh Tohidi, head of the department of gender and women's studies at Cal State Northridge, said Nooriala and Sepanlou represent a wave of Iranians who endured the revolution that overthrew Shah Reza Pahlavi, came to the United States and are bridging the two lands through their work on behalf of women and human rights.