Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora

Join us for a remote-access Saturday afternoon (3:00 pm Pacific) reading with California poets/translators Armen Davoudian, Farnaz Fatemi, Gary Gach, Zara Houshmand, Persis Karim, Mojdeh Marashi and Sholeh Wolpé, each contributors to the new anthology, Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora, edited by Christopher Nelson; introduced by Kaveh Bassiri (Green Linden Press, 2021).

This program is co-presented with the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies and Diaspora Arts Connection.

The anthology Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora features 130 poets and translators from ten countries, including Garous Abdolmalekian, Kaveh Akbar, Kazim Ali, Reza Baraheni, Kaveh Bassiri, Simin Behbahani, Mark S. Burrows, Athena Farrokhzad, Forugh Farrokhzad, Persis Karim, Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, Sara Khalili, Mimi Khalvati, Esmail Khoi, Abbas Kiarostami, Fayre Makeig, Anis Mojgani, Yadollah Royai, Amir Safi, SAID, H.E. Sayeh, Roger Sedarat, Sohrab Sepehri, Ahmad Shamlu, Solmaz Sharif, Niloufar Talebi, Jean Valentine, Stephen Watts, Sholeh Wolpé, Nima Yushij and many others.

Purchase the 364-page book here. Image, detail from cover art [untitled] by Golnaz Fathi.

• 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

• Location: Online (Zoom)
• Website: Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies
• Sponsor: Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies
• Contact: Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies
• E-mail: iraniandiasporastudies@sfsu.edu