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rable to the ruling culture … [together they] went from being the victims of heterosexual society, into being the critics of such a
society, which is not yet smart enough to yield to a just and fair system” (Ghahraman 2009).
// Blogger Mahi also expressed admiration for Hamseresht:
“He is the perfect role model for Iranian homosexuals and the name that he has chosen emphasises his extreme talent … He
talks about a kind of kindred spirit that exists within homosexuals. He is a kindred spirit writing for kindred spirits … he screams the pain of the kindred spirits and talks of the limitations of ‘existence’ for homosexuals in Iran” (Mahi 2011). Gilgamish
also wrote of Hamseresht’s effect on bloggers: “Hamseresht has affected change on bloggers; a change in form and in the
amount and type of words used, regardless of the content and the presentation, a new form and format for the expression of poetry” (Gilgamish 2007).
elham malekpour
// Most of the online commentary concerning Elham
Malekpour’s books discusses the vagueness of her poetry.
Ahmad Bahador commented, “What is the point in writing a
poem that nobody understands except the poet themselves? … 28
These blog comments are
I’m not against the writing of such poems, I even appreciate it,
but I am strongly against the sharing and publishing of them”.28
available at the Queer Book
Another of Elham’s readers, also male, had a similar feeling
See http://ketabkhaneh88.
observations were published in the blog of the Queer Book
Fair of Iran blog on Blogspot. blogspot.com/2010/10/
blog-post.html
when he first read her poetry but later changed his mind. His Fair: “I downloaded some books from the Queer Book Fair, and
two of those books were written by Elham Malekpour … I started reading them but didn’t understand much … and then today
something really interesting happened!” The reader then goes
on to describe how he met her by chance through a common