Persian literature over its long history has produced few women poets. Parvin I'tisami is to be counted among the most important of them, even though today she is often eclipsed by her younger compatriot, Forough Farrokhzad, a proponent of the new poetry. I'tisami's poetry is written in the traditional classical style, although, paradoxically, she came from a background that mixed the traditional and modern. Her father especially held modern views. He allowed Parvin to be educated away from the home, took her along on his travels, and included her in his (male) literary gatherings. He was a forward-looking intellectual who edited and published the important cultural journal Bahar, in which I'tisami's first poems were published, anonymously, when she was a young teenager. I'tisami herself was a founder of the Women's Center in Tehran, an institution seeking women's emancipation, including unveiling. Yet she sometimes veiled, and she kept public contact to the barest minimum. After a brief unhappy marriage,...