About the Book
Edited and translated by the internationally renowned poet John Kinsella and the Iranian-born poet and translator Ali Alizadeh, Six Vowels and Twenty-three Consonants is a groundbreaking new collection of poems presenting the wealth of poetic voices from one of the world's most important literary cultures. The book covers poetry from the early Middle Ages to the Modernists and Postmodernists of the 20th and 21st centuries. No other culture in the world has produced such quantity and quality of mystical poetry and true spiritual vision as the Persian tradition. In this poetry there is an effulgence of meaning; nearly every word resonates with chords of allusion and multiple signification. Whether we read a modern poet or one of the classics, this resonance reaches back to the beginnings of the tradition, and it touches us today.
Table of Contents:
PREFACE/ 6, INTRODUCTION/ 9, SECTION ONE: CLASSICAL PERSIAN VERSE/ 15, INTRODUCTION TO SECTION ONE /16, RUDAKI (858-941 CE) /22, From Divan-e Rudaki /22, FERDOWSI (935-1020) /24, From the Shah-Nameh /24, From the Shah-Nameh/ 26, OMAR KHAYYAM (1048-1122) /30, Three Quatrains from the Rubaiyat /30, BABA TAHER (1000-1075?) /32, Three Quatrains /32, MAHASTI (1089-1159?) /34, Four Quatrains /34, ATTAR (1124-1220?) /38, From the Mantegh at-Tayr /38 From the Mantegh at-Tayr /40, NEZAMI (1141-1209) /42, From Haft Peykar /42, SAADI (1200-1291?) /46, From the Golestan /46, Quatrain from the Divan-e Saadi /48, RUMI (1207-1273?) /50, Ghazal from Divan-e Sham-e Tabrizi /50, From the Masnavi Ma'navi /52, HAFEZ (1320-1389?) /54, Ghazal from Divan-e Hafez /54, Ghazal from Divan-e Hafez /58, JAMI (1414-1492) /60, From Haft Awrang /60, VAHSHI BAFQI (1532-1583) /64 Ghazal / 64, HATEF ESFEHANI (?-1783) /66, Ghazal /66, TAHIRIH GORRAT AL-AYN (1817-1852)/68 Ghazal /68, SECTION TWO: MODERN PERSIAN POETRY /70, INTRODUCTION TO SECTION TWO / 71, NIMA YUSHIJ (1896-1959) /76, The Phoenix / 76, PARVIN ETESAMI (1906-1941) / 82, The Tear of the Orphan /82, SHAHRIAR (1906-1988) /84 From 'Alas, My Mother" /84, AHMAD SHAMLU (1925-2000) /90, The Journey /90 FEREYDOON MOSHIRI (1926-2000) /94, The Nights of Karun /94 SIMIN BEHBAHANI (b. 1927) /98, You Said It's a Grape / 98 MEHDI AKHAVAN-SALES (1928-1990) /100, The Return of the Ravens / 100 NOSRAT RAHMANI (1929-2000) /104, Exile in a Ring of Chains /104, FOROUGH FARROKHZAD (1935-1967) /108, The Bird, Only a Bird /108, TAHEREH SAFFARZADEH (b. 1936) /110, Fog in London /110, AHMADREZA AHMADI (b. 1940) /112, The Absence of Contact /112, MIMI KHALVATI (b. 1944)/116, Ghazal - after Hafez /116, PARTOW NOORIALA (b. 1946) /118, Woman 118, MAHMOOD KAVIR (b. 1951) /126, Come With Me to Lebanon /126, ALI ZARRIN (b. 1952) /130, Free Ghazal (1) /130, MAHASTI SHAHROKHI (b. 1956) /132, Beautiful Wounds /132, SHOLE WOLPE (b. 1961) /134, High Above Tehran /134, DAVOOD SALEHI (b. 1964) 1/36, Untitled 3 /136 FARZANEH GHAVAMI (b. 1968) /138, The Same Events /138, MANDANA ZANDIAN (b. 1972)/ 142, Untitled /142, ALIREZA BEHNAM (b. 1973) /144, Hanging from the Trees of Babylon's Temple /144, BAHAREH REZAI (b. 1978) /146, 48 /146, AHMAD ZAHEDI LANGROODI (b. 1983) /148, Thread of the Noose /148, BIOGRAPHIES
About the Author :
John Kinsella and Ali Alizadeh have been in collaboration over this volume for three years. Ali Alizadeh has since taught writing and literature at universities in Australia, China, Turkey and United Arab Emirates. He is the author of six books including collections of poetry. John Kinsella is the author of over thirty books. He is an editor and international editor of a number of literary journals and is also a literary critic and cultural commentator.
Review :
In Six Vowels and Twenty Three Consonants we are in danger of thinking ourselves in more familiar territory - but any lingers half-memories of the nineteenth century translator Edward FitzGerald are soon seen for the misleading signposts they are. This is at the same time a very beautiful and very useful anthology. Two impeccably written and documented introductions by co-translator Ali Alizardeh give historical and current political context and a welcome unifying perspective to poets and poems caught between shifting nations, faiths and boundaries. Yet, across the thirteen centuries spanned by this selection, a Persian linguistic and poetic tradition is recognisable, embracing well-known figures such as Omar Khayyam and Rumi while subtly challenging our previous uncontextualised Western readings. This book has great integrity. Students and scholars will welcome the linkages it make possible, not least its acknowledgement of an important strand of energetic writing and experimentation among women poets. But everyone will surely relish the design and layout of this book. In this poetry, where, in Rumi's words, "All life is held by those who have let their cacophony die", white space itself is particularly important, and the publishers have had the sense to do see this. The whole book is an acknowledgement that we read poems differently according to how an where they reach us. There are formal echoes - couplets, quatrains, ghazals. There are recurring themes and images - sexual desire, wine, ships, bloodshed. But while the book's documentation seems to ask us to read as students, its uncluttered design allows us to read as lovers of poetry too. Susan Wicks, Poetry Review 2013
