Tuesday 13 April 2021

Khajou Kermani: a Ghazal in translation








Mahmud Kianush translation 2014
Ali Mosleh photograph, "Khajoo Kermani Shrine-- Quran Gate" 2013

More about the poet:

Khwaju Kermani on wikipedia

arts-arena: Persian Classical Poetry:

 "Kamal-od-Din Khajoo Kermani"

A 13th Century AD poet and a contemporary of Hafez. He was influenced by other poets such as Sana'i, Attar, Mowlavi, and Saadi. In addition to a collection of ghazals (lyrical poems), he wrote five narrative poems (stories in verse), similar to Nezami's Khamsa, of which "Homay and Homayoon" is the most famous.

POEMS

1. "THE GEM AND THE MINE"

2. "HUNTING THE HUNTER"

 



Wednesday 7 April 2021

The Journey & Other Poems (review)

 

(excerpt)
"The Journey And Other Poems" by Mahmud Kianush, pub. Knives Forks And Spoons Press.   2020   147 pages   £12.00

...

The mix of abstraction and lyricism, of modern and traditional, has a playful aspect which combines high-minded philosophical titles (Reality and Illusion/Being and Nothingness) with a more sensual language which is both down-to-earth and more immediate while also retaining a succinct sophistication. This is poetry which can be read aloud, declaimed in fact in a high rhetorical mode while embracing a sense of complexity within apparent simplicity. It’s beautiful stuff indeed.

 

The Journey & Other Poems is an astonishing book which combines different philosophical and literary traditions to create a celebration of the world and of our experience of it in a manner which feels both fresh and yet is based on accumulative materials. I could say a lot more about this but it’s the sort of collection which the reader should discover and ponder for his or her self. I hope this short review provides a useful way in and at least registers the existence of a body of work which I was totally unaware of.

 


Copyright © Steve Spence, 2021

to read the full review visit Litter Magazine:
https://www.littermagazine.com/2021/03/review-journey-and-other-poems-by.html


~

Cover art is by Mahmud Kianush:

here are a few related akkaashi

KarB Life is Colour




Compulation (هفده)




006

Rostam and his Rakhsh

  I am Rakhsh, the heavenly horse, The twin of Rostam, the mighty hero; We were born for each other, ...