Art and Architecture: PERSIAN POETRY | Elizabeth T. Gray, Tom Sleigh, Porochista Khakpour, Roger Sedarat, Don Share, Arezoo Moseni | Art and Literature Series Event

April 27, 2016

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FREE - Auditorium doors open at 5:30 p.m.

SHÂHNÂMAH = THE BOOK OF KINGS_Firdawsî_The baby Rustam in swaddling clothes is suckled by one of his ten wet nurses_SPENCER COLLECTION_The New York Public Library
SHÂHNÂMAH = THE BOOK OF KINGS, Firdawsî, The baby Rustam in swaddling clothes is suckled by one of his ten wet nurses, SPENCER COLLECTION,
The New York Public Library

Daily developments in the Middle East demand our attention to politics, history and religion, but poetry is often overlooked in perspectives brought to bear on our attention to them.  Literary intersections between the West and Middle East are longstanding, from Goethe and Emerson right up to the present day.

Five noted literary figures Porochista Khakpour, Roger Sedarat, Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr.; Tom Sleigh, and Don Share gather to discuss and illuminate the issues that make Persian poetry more than ever pertinent to our own time and contemporary literature. The discussion is moderated by Arezoo Moseni.

Basil Bunting is one of the most important English poets of the twentieth century, admired early on by Ezra Pound and Louis Zukofsky, and acknowledged since the 1930s as a major figure in the Modernist movement. Faber published a substantial selection of his verse in Pound’s Active Anthology (1933), but Bunting’s reputation was confirmed only decades later with the publication of his masterpiece, Briggflatts, in 1966. Bunting’s work was published haphazardly throughout most of his life, and in many cases he did not oversee publication. Basil Bunting: The Poems is the first critical edition of the complete poems, and offers an accurate text with variants from all printed sources.

Don Share annotates Bunting’s often complex and allusive verse, with much illuminating quotation from his prose writings, interviews and correspondence. Share also examines Bunting’s sources (including Persian literature and classical mythology), and explores the Northumbrian roots of Bunting’s poetic vocabulary and use of dialect. Don Share’s important work of literary scholarship offers, for the first time, an edition commensurate with the achievement of this neglected modernist master.

SHÂHNÂMAH = THE BOOK OF KINGS_Firdawsî_Barzû's mother tells Rustam of the lineage of her son_SPENCER COLLECTION_The New York Public Library
SHÂHNÂMAH = THE BOOK OF KINGS, Firdawsî, Barzû's mother tells Rustam of the lineage of her son, SPENCER COLLECTION, The New York Public Library

Reading Bunting’s translations, I am struck again by how fresh and strong they are, how vivid in their feeling, and how he digs into the spirit of the originals—a kind of passionate excavation work.Dick Davis, translator of The Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings

Don Share is the editor of Poetry magazine.  His most recent books are Union (Eyewear, 2013), Wishbone (Black Sparrow, 2012),  and Bunting’s Persia (Flood Editions, 2012); he has also edited a critical edition of Bunting’s poems for Faber and Faber (forthcoming 2016). His translations of Miguel Hernández, awarded the Times Literary Supplement Translation Prize and Premio Valle Inclán, were published in a revised and expanded edition by New York Review Books (2013), and also appear in an edition from Bloodaxe Books (1997). His other books include Seneca in English (Penguin Classics, 1998), Squandermania (Salt, 2007), and The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of POETRY Magazine (University of Chicago Press, 2012), co-edited with Christian Wiman.  His work at Poetry has been recognized with three National Magazine Awards and a CLMP “Firecracker” Award.  He received a VIDA “VIDO” Award in 2015 for his contributions to American literature and literary community. 

Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr., is a poet, a translator of classical and contemporary Persian, and a corporate consultant. Her collection of poems, SERIES | INDIA was published by Four Way Books in April 2015. Translations include The Green Sea of Heaven: Fifty Ghazals from the Diwan-i Hafiz-i Shirazi (1995) and Iran:Poems of Dissent (2013), and “Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season” by Forough Farrokhzad (Mantis, 2014). Other work has appeared in Little Star, Talisman, The Kenyon Review Online, New England Review, Ploughshares, Poetry International and elsewhere. She has a B.A. and J. D. from Harvard University and an M. F. A. from Warren Wilson College.

Porochista Khakpour is the author of the forthcoming memoir SICK (HarperPerennial, 2017), and the novels THE LAST ILLUSION (Bloomsbury, 2014)—a 2014 "Best Book of the Year" according to NPR, Kirkus, Buzzfeed, Popmatters, Electric Literature, and more— and SONS AND OTHER FLAMMABLE OBJECTS (Grove, 2007)—the 2007 California Book Award winner in “First Fiction,” one of the Chicago Tribune’s “Fall’s Best,” and a New York Times “Editor’s Choice.” Her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming in Harper’s, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera America, Bookforum, Slate, Salon, Spin, The Daily Beast, Elle,and many other publications around the world.  She is currently Editor at Large at The Scofield and Contributing Editor at The Offing, and Writer in Residence at Bard College. Born in Tehran and raised in Los Angeles, she lives in New York City.

SHÂHNÂMAH = THE BOOK OF KINGS_Firdawsî_Bahman and his courtiers look at the body of Farâmarz_SPENCER COLLECTION_The New York Public Library
SHÂHNÂMAH = THE BOOK OF KINGS, Firdawsî, Bahman and his courtiers look
at the body of Farâmarz, SPENCER COLLECTION, The New York Public Library

Roger Sedarat is the author of three poetry collections Dear Regime: Letters to the Islamic Republic (Ohio UP), Ghazal Games (Ohio UP), and Foot Faults: Tennis Poems (forthcoming, David Roberts Books). His translations of classical and modern Persian literature have appeared in such journals as Guernica, Brooklyn Rail, and World Literature Today. Current projects include interdisciplinary performance renderings of verse by Hafez and Rumi as well as a book-length study of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s appropriative translations of Persian Sufi poetry. A recipient of the 2015 Willis Barnstone Translation Prize, he teaches poetry and literary translation in the MFA Program at Queens College, the City University of New York.

Tom Sleigh's many books include Station Zed, Army Cats. He is the winner of the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Space Walk, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Award. Far Side of the Earth won an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, The Dreamhouse was a finalist for the LA Times Book Award, and The Chain was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Prize. His work appears in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Best of the Best American Poetry, The Best American Travel Writing, and The Pushcart Anthology. He has received the Shelley Prize from the PSA, and awards from the American Academy in Berlin, Civitella Ranieri, the Lila Wallace Fund, the Guggenheim, and two NEAs among many others. He is a Distinguished Professor in the MFA Program at Hunter College and works as a journalist in Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Kenya, Iraq, and Libya.

SHÂHNÂMAH = THE BOOK OF KINGS_Firdawsî_Zâl before the palace of Rûdâbah_SPENCER COLLECTION_The New York Public Library
SHÂHNÂMAH = THE BOOK OF KINGS, Firdawsî, Zâl before the palace of Rûdâbah, SPENCER COLLECTION,
The New York Public Library

Arezoo Moseni is an artist. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at major venues in the U.S. and abroad such as FIAC 2014, and it is held in numerous public and private collections including the Brooklyn Museum, Bibliotheque nationale de France, and Musee de La Photographie. She is the recipient of several fellowships and grants including the Carnegie Corporation of New York | New York Times award, Kentler International Work on Site grant, Yaddo Fellowship and Artists Space Independent Project grant. She received a BFA at Utah State University, a MA and MFA at the University of New Mexico, and a MLIS at Pratt Institute. She curates exhibitions and events at The New York Public Library where she has initiated several exhibition and program series featuring the work of emerging and renowned artists, authors, critics, designers and others.

Conceived and organized by Arezoo Moseni, and in its sixth year, Art and Literature Series events bring forth pollinations across the literary and visual arts with readings and discussions by acclaimed artists, authors and poets.

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