translation

Iran’s modern history has repeatedly unfolded in ways that made this line—together with the longing for dawn—feel painfully current again and again. Perhaps never more so than in recent weeks, following the brutally violent suppression of the protests that had been ongoing since late December

The third poem is centered on a widespread topos in Arabic poetry, the gazelle symbolizing a beautiful woman. However, while male poets describe the gazelle from the outside, as the object of their desire, Qasmūna identifies with her, and shows how the gazelle sees herself

At dawn, on the verge of dream and awakening, the verses of the old Greek memoriter snake out of my memory, with galloping iambs ˘ ¯ ˘ ¯ ˘ ¯ ¯, like Franz Marc’s dream-colored horses. It was Anacreon who wrote them in this serpentine way