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Because She Walked In Beauty

They sentenced her to over seventy lashes,
Because she walked in beauty, hair revealed,
Which beauty they demanded be concealed.
Courageously, she faced the mullahs’ fascists,

Who glared at her with dusky eyes askant.
Then led away and shackled to a bed,
They beat her backside ‘til it bubbled red.
With every stripe, her lips would softly chant

A song: “Rise, for Woman, for Life, for Freedom”.
She never gave the court the satisfaction
To think she suffered pain for an exaction
That harkens back to some medieval kingdom.

But when will modern Man reject this violence,
And when will Western voices break their silence?

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Poet’s Note: Roya Heshmati, a 33-year-old Iranian woman, was recently sentenced to 13 years in prison for appearing in public and on social media without a headscarf. The sentence was “reduced” to a one-year suspended sentence, a fine of about $25, and 74 lashes. She is also barred from leaving the country for three years.

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Cheryl Corey is a poet who lives in Connecticut. “Three Sisters,” her trio of poems about the sisters of Fate which were first published by the Society of Classical Poets, are featured in “Gods and Monsters,” an anthology of mythological poems (MacMillan Children’s Books, 2023).

NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets.

The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary.


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22 Responses

  1. Russel Winick

    Great poem, Cheryl. And I love the title! Sickening story. If Obama and Biden read this, they would — give Iran more money.

    Reply
    • Cheryl Corey

      I’ll never forget that time when there was widespread protest in Iran and Obama was largely silent.

      Reply
  2. Brian Yapko

    Roya Heshmati is one brave woman — and you, Cheryl, are a brave poet to release this powerful and daring poem out to the public. It’s a very fine piece on an important subject which needs to get a spotlight. When will leaders in the West sober up and start looking realistically at what kind of medieval barbarism they’re dealing with in Iran? Thank you for piercing through the denial. Scathingly well done!

    Reply
    • Cheryl Corey

      Thanks, Brian. This story affected me deeply. Maybe I missed it, but as far as I know, there was nary a peep from the current administration; not to mention, where’s the outcry from so-called feminists? The campus marches for justice? The UN? The Vatican? It’s often said that you can take the measure of a society by how they treat those who are the most vulnerable and least able to defend themselves.

      Reply
  4. Paul Erlandson

    Thank you, Cheryl, for this important, and extremely well-crafted poem! Poetically, it feels “seamless” to me, without flaw. In terms of capturing her suffering for a righteous cause, very effective!

    Last year, I completed a painting, “Woman, Life, Freedom”, on the theme of the Iranian Women’s Revolution. A local Iranian-American woman modeled for it – it shows a woman blindfolded, and with the names of the martyrs written on her body. It can be seen at my art website, under the category of “Invisible Struggles.”

    Again, this is a wonderful and important poem you have achieved!

    Reply
    • Cheryl Corey

      Paul, I didn’t know that you’re an artist, and just took a look at your work. I’m dabbling in watercolor myself. Isn’t it interesting that we’re both artists as well as poets?

      Reply
  5. Joseph S. Salemi

    The refusal of Western feminists to raise any protest against the suppression of women’s rights in Iran and other Moslem nations is what poker players call a “tell” — a giveaway sign that reveals an opposing player’s hand or strategy. It shows that mainstream feminists are primarily loyal to a left-liberal political agenda, which today has as as its overriding goal the defeat and humiliation of the West. The actual rights of women are therefore placed on the back burner.

    One minor grammatical nit — the line “Then led away and shackled to a bed” dangles improperly, since its referent is not to the woman in question but to the “They” of the following line.

    The problem could be solved with this revision:

    They then placed Roya face-down on a bed,
    And beat her backside till it bubbled red.

    Also, the standard form /till/ is preferable to using an apostrophe to create /’til/.

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      In the terror attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7th, the savages raped and mutilated hundreds of women before murdering them. It took the U.N. two months to condemn these horrific attacks on Jewish women — and only after much political pressure to do so. And the silence of feminist organizations in the U.S. was deafening. Yes, the loyalty to leftist politics transcends and true sense of fairness or justice. It is sick.

      Reply
    • Cheryl Corey

      Thank you for the suggested line revision and usage of “till”. I did struggle a bit with that line.

      Reply
  6. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Back in the 1960’s I dated a girl named Roya. Her father was a US Navy Commander and her mother was Iranian. She was beautiful and was conceived at a time when America would visit Iranian ports shortly after WWII. Your poem rekindled those memories.

    Reply
    • Cheryl Corey

      Such a shame, Roy, that Carter enabled the return of the ayatollah. For whatever the faults of the Shah’s regime, it seemed that Iran was becoming a modern nation.

      Reply
  7. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Cheryl, this is a hard-hitting sonnet that highlights the hypocrisy of the feminist movement in the Western world. I applaud you for every powerful and well-written line. You inspired me to write a poem of my own in support of this brave woman. I hope you don’t mind me posting my poem in the comments section. I stand with Roya Heshmati and would like to support you in highlighting her plight. Roya is a woman fighting a worthy cause for women in a country that has trampled all over women’s freedoms. This is now our country. Any woman not speaking out against men identifying as women in their sports, their prisons, their bathrooms, their hospital wards, etc. etc. is heading in the same direction as Iran. Women will fade into nonexistence. Cheryl, thank you!!

    Where Have All the Feminists Gone?
    for Roya Heshmati

    Where is the voice for Women’s Rights –
    That pussy-hatted call
    Yowled out to win the harshest fights
    Against the patriarchal blights?
    All damsels out to slay dark knights,
    Why don’t you bawl for all
    Your sisters stripped and whipped red raw
    For flouting forced, archaic law?

    Where is the chorus, loud and long,
    For women gagged and bound?
    Where is the marching, chanting throng?
    Where is the banging of a gong?
    Where is the gall for all that’s wrong?
    Why isn’t there a sound?
    When heroines stand up and dare
    It tethers tongues of frauds who care.

    PS. I too am an avid reader of the Gateway Pundit and recommend it to all.

    Reply
    • Cheryl Corey

      Susan, I’m humbled that I inspired you to write a poem of similar vein. The more light we can shed on this issue the better. Women’s rights in this country are being eroded. Are those naive young women who march in support of Hamas okay with Sharia law?

      Reply
      • Susan Jarvis Bryant

        Cheryl, I am with you all the way. Those “naive young women who march in support of Hamas” are swept up in an ideology that will show them no mercy. When an ideology shouts louder than one’s conscience, humanity is lost. That is why your poem is so important. Thanks again!

  8. Margaret Coats

    Cheryl, it’s a great thing to notice this barbaric incident in a good poem. While there are small organizations that take notice, their work fades quickly without a bigger cause, such as the woman condemned to death by stoning in 2010. In response, the European parliament condemned stoning–but even when the woman was pardoned after other punishments (including the one you note here), persons involved became collateral damage. Two of the woman’s lawyers were jailed, which warned others not to take up such matters.

    As you point out in commenting about feminist groups, their leftist slant takes precedence over their purported concerns. Steven Mosher, the first Western witness to Chinese forced abortions, saw traumatized women screaming and struggling and shouting prayers for their babies’ lives. Back in the USA, the National Organization for Women declined to care.

    Your beautiful poem is more likely to gain attention because it alludes to one of Byron’s best known lines. Allow me, however, to regret the unnecessary slander of the Middle Ages in using “medieval” as a poor synonym for “cruel” or “barbaric.” The European Middle Ages represent one thousand years of history and culture to which we are heirs. That is the primary reference of the word “medieval.” Not all of it can be condemned for barbarism. In varied kingdoms and many persons and diverse historic tendencies, medieval virtues surpassed those of modern Man, who is guilty of unprecedented violence.

    Reply
    • Cheryl Corey

      You raise a good point, Margaret, about the “medieval” reference. During my composition the connotation brought to mind such barbarism as burning people at the stake, beheadings, quartering, torture chamber dungeons; i.e., the worst practices of the era.

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        The term “barbaric” could be used with the same metrical value.

  9. C.B. Anderson

    Crucifixions are a recurrent theme in Human History, and this is but one of the contemporary examples.

    Reply
  10. David Whippman

    Cheryl, thanks for this poem. You spoke for one of the people mysteriously ignored by the grandstanding protesters who are marching in our cities at the moment.

    Reply

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