I have lived this. I believe every woman from Iran who reads her words will feel every line of the poems she writes.
Two powerful sentences that show why Mariam Saidan’s ‘A Cry’ is the IS&T Pick of the Month for November 2025. This is a beautiful, touching, gentle and authentic poem, a poem that says so much in nine short lines, a poem that ‘has such clarity, communicates so much and is so moving.’
Mariam Saidan is a Specialist Advocate for Women’s Rights and has worked as a Children’s Rights Advocate, studied Human Rights Law at Nottingham University (LLM) and Creative Writing at Kent University. She is Iranian, based in London and has lived in Iran, France, and the UK. She wrote her first journal at 8 years old during the Iran-Iraq war.
A Cry
Female singing constitutes a ‘forbidden act’ (ḥarām),
punishable under Article 638 of the Islamic Penal Code.
When I was younger
I used to sing.
In private.
Now whenever
I open my mouth,
it’s a cry for all the
lives in which I didn’t
or will not
sing.
Other voters comments included:
The poem is beautiful and very relevant to the events taking place.
It’s very touching and authentic
A voice raising awareness on ‘Silencing of women’s voice throughout history, all cultures, traditions
It’s such a powerful depiction of women’s oppression for something that should be joyous and a form of expression
I find the poem gentle but yet moving
a beautiful and simple ode to the suffering of women
I resonated with these words so much!!
For such a short poem, it has such clarity, communicates so much and is so moving.
II have lived this. I believe every woman from Iran who reads her words will feel every line of the poems she writes. Thank you, Maryam, for sharing something so important in such beautiful words.
As a Muslim woman from the South Asian community, I deeply relate to this
she is brilliant and her poetry is so touching and raw and real. love it!
Mariam has such a unique and new voice. The range of emotions I felt when I read her work was amazing. They all deserve to win, but Mariam pips at the post.
It put tears in my eyes
The poet’s voice is spare, mournful but defiant
Deceptively simple but brilliant underlining of the horror of female oppression.
The poem resonates with the on goings of the world today
Mariam’s poem resonates with me as a woman, and the issues of oppression so many women face.
The poem is so sec and free of embellishment or explanation, yet it speaks its truth compellingly. A few little lines, and the heart breaks!
It’s indeed very touching and heartfelt
Short, but powerful.
very inspirational and truly lasting ‘last line’
Speaks to the injustice all women face – the control of even the basic simple rights any human being should be afforded
A cry that defies repression and a spirit that refuses to be silenced.
Talk, and therefore singing, are inherent to mankind, that’s making us human beings. Being forbidden to sing is being deprived of our humanity. This is a wonderful poem, with a meaning as heavy as its writing is simple.
Helen Ivory wrote on shortlisting:
‘A Cry’ by Mariam Saidan speaks to the statement at the roots of women’s activism: ‘No woman is safe until all women are safe’ where one woman is every woman, every woman is one woman. Sometimes it is necessary to say things directly, as they are, and here the narrator’s coming of age is an urgent voice against the silencing of women’s voices.
THE REST OF THE NOVEMBER 2025 PICK OF THE MONTH SHORTLIST
Taḋg Paul is a queer poet, former LGBTQ+ rights campaigner, and software developer. In 2022, an injury rendered him quadriplegic. During hospitalization and rehab he rekindled a love for writing poetry. Today he volunteers at Fighting Words mentoring young writers, creates art, and lives with his dog, Toby in Greystones, Ireland. He showcases some of his poetry on tadg.ie and his artwork on tigger.gallery
*
Death of an autistic war child
I was born on the sleeves of an immigrant
father whispered God into my ear
My tears were folded in muslin
Stars stayed in drone-moan sky
I was a difficult birth early as the Thrush
Freckled as the bullet ridden minarets
Always crying at the call to prayer
God, it seemed wanted me back.
I died on the palms of my ululating mother
My father wants to fold me in muslin
Whisper some kind of God into me
Summoning a mythical paradise.
Antony Owen is writer from Coventry who is sick and tired of conflict. Post-Atomic Glossaries: New and Selected Poems is published by Broken Sleep Books.
*
Becoming Hedgehog
(i)
Noises are louder now: the kesh
of tyres on tarmac slicked
with leaves. Rain’s drumming thunder.
My other self pulls at me,
pricks from inside. Limbs compress, ribs
tighten around starved lungs. I furl;
I shrink, a leaf about to drop
quivering from its branch. Spine arches;
fingers, toes close in.
My needle skin hides me
in lengthening shadows: my armour
against the dogs, the melancholy owls.
(ii)
They all tell of frogs
snogged by princesses, lanky green
specimens transformed
into slender knights.
But it takes a special kiss
to break a hedgehog spell, to make
that knotted ball of me
unravel.
You have to place your x
just at the soft spot
at the tip of the nose, the point
where all taste and touch and feeling begins.
Slip, and you risk
mouthfuls of bristles, bleeding lips
and your one and only chance
to see real magic at work.
Andy Humphrey has published two collections of original poetry, A Long Way to Fall (Lapwing Press, 2013) and Satires (Stairwell Books, 2015). He lives in York and works as solicitor. www.writeoutloud.net/profiles/andyhumphrey.
*
Return
Travel West. Submerge yourself
in the M4’s homeward drift.
Remember how
its nightly glow
bewitched the kid
at your bedroom window?
It looked like fire, didn’t it?
Exit at junction 34.
Drop into street view
Follow the lane
down past prickly fields
where swallows zip.
Remember those kids
pulling petals
from clover heads?
Sucking sugar
from each wet tip?
Close your bedroom door.
Listen for tawny owls
and the InterCity.
Watch pipistrelles twist
in the velvet night
like you used to.
As they always did.
You remember, don’t you?
You remember everything.
Tamara Evans’s poems have been published inPoetry Wales and in the Write Out Loud Milestones anthology, and selected to appear on buses in London and Brighton in Poetry on the Buses competitions. Find Tamara on bluesky,instagram.
*
In search of a tawaif’s tale (Dilli love)
This is not a frilly, mushy love letter
to a city whose allure lies in defying all labels and holding the mystery key to a man’s heart, though none has ever been able to lay an absolute claim on it,
make it; his own.
My first impression of Dilli is that of an ageless ‘tawaif’
whose charm, chaos and charisma can effortlessly incite a visitor to indulge in voyeurism.
The city; an interesting tapestry of time; woven haphazardly.
The sprawling concrete habitat has the sloganeering youth, the policymaking bureaucracy, the migrant labour, the affluent and not so affluent –
officers, clerks, artists, judges, doctors, traders, ministers, eunuchs all jostling for space, wishing to call it ‘home.’
While the metro rail track crisscrosses the landmass of the tawaif’s body,
there are tabla beats accentuating the qawwali,
smell of paranthas and kebabs wafting through the lanes and bylanes,
the grandeur of Indo Persian architecture vying for footfall alongside the cold corridors of bureaucratic power.
The real and surreal blend in the midnight hour
when history rewrites itself with the fluttering tiranga and ‘tryst with destiny.’
The faint hum of Ghalib’s ghazals leave behind a residue of unrequited love and regret across the halls and charbaghs,
the veiled faces of once beautiful begums fade away with the morning mist,
the tawaif heaves a sigh as the sky is tinged with the rays of the morning sun.
A steady stream of cars, buses, autos, with their grey fumes script the itinerary of another day of heat and dust.
Mallika Bhaumik was a nominee for the Pushcart Prize for Poetry in the year 2019. She is the author of three poetry books. Her latest book When time is a magic jar was published by Red River Press in February 2025, and has received encouraging reviews from Cha: An Asian Literary, Journal & Scroll.in among others. She lives and writes from Kolkata, India.
Glossary
Tawaif ~ cultured female entertainer and courtesan during Mughal era known for their mastery of classical music and dance.
Qawwali ~a style of Sufi devotional music
ghazal ~ In Middle Eastern and Indian literature a lyrics poem with a fixed number of verses and a repeated rhyme scheme
Charbagh ~ four gardens in Persian and also refers to a walled garden divided in four equal quadrants
Parantha ~ a popular South Asian flat bread
Kebab ~ a type of meat preparation
Tiranga ~ The tricolour/ Indian Flag