Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora
About this ebook
Praise
Between arm-flexing states, the U.S. and Iran, the past burns and the future is held hostage. In a twilight present tense, the poets emerge, sure-footed and graceful, imagining another way, another vision of being. The range of these Iranian poets is prodigious and dizzying. Sometimes they "consider the saga of a bee / humming over minefields / in pursuit of a flower," sometimes they "bring your lips near / and pour your voice / into my mouth." Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora is a place where heartbreak and hope gather. At the shores of language, drink this bracing, slaking music.
—Philip Metres, author of Shrapnel Maps
Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and its Diaspora takes the extraordinary position that poetic arts from the homeland and diaspora should be read alongside each other. This vital book invites English-language readers to step into a lineage and tradition where poems—from playful to elegiac, prosaic to ornate—are fundamental to everyday living. It is the kind of book that requires two copies: one to give to a beloved, and one to keep for oneself.
—Neda Maghbouleh, author of The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian Americans and the Everyday Politics of Race
Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora offers a profoundly satisfying journey into the poetic canon of my homeland—an anthology with an ambition, expanse, depth, and diversity that truly earns its essential tag. So many poets I was hoping would be in here are here, from contemporary icons to new luminaries, plus I got to explore several poets I had never before read. Everyone from students of poetry to masters of the form should take this ride through the soul and psyche of Iran, which endures no matter where the border, beyond whatever the boundary!
—Porochista Khakpour, author of Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity
Iranians rely on poetry to give comfort, elevate the ordinary, and illuminate the darkness. Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and its Diaspora layers the work of the masters with fresh voices, using sensual imagery to piece together a society fractured by revolution, war, and exile. Let the poets lead you into an Iran beyond the news reports—a place where tenderness and humor and bitterness and melancholia balance together like birds on a wire, intricately connected and poised to take flight.
—Tara Bahrampour, author of To See and See Again: A Life in Iran and America
About the author
Christopher Nelson is the editor of Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora. He is also the author of Blood Aria (University of Wisconsin Press, 2021) and three chapbooks, including Blue House, recipient of a New American Poets Fellowship from the Poetry Society of America. He is the founder and editor of the journal Under a Warm Green Linden and Green Linden Press, a nonprofit publisher dedicated to poetic excellence and reforestation.
Kaveh Bassiri is an Iranian American writer and translator. He wrote the introduction to Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora. He is the author of 99 Names of Exile, winner of the Anzaldúa Poetry Prize, and Elementary English, winner of Rick Campbell Chapbook Prize. His poems and translations have appeared in numerous publications, including Best American Poetry 2020 and Best New Poets 2020. He is the recipient of a 2019 translation fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a 2021 Individual Artist Fellowship from Arkansas Arts Council, and a 2021–2023 Tulsa Artist Fellowship.
