This panel should be very inter­est­ing and, given what’s been going on in Iran and the new protests that took place there yes­ter­day, I think it’s a good time to learn more about Iran­ian cul­ture. If you’re in NY, I hope you’ll come.

THE PHILOCTETES CENTER FOR THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY STUDY OF IMAGINATION

at the New York Psy­cho­an­a­lytic Insti­tute
(EDWARD NERSESSIAN AND FRANCIS LEVY, DIRECTORS)

invites you to a Poetry Read­ing & Dis­cus­sion
Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 22, 2009 at 7:00pm
at
The Philoctetes Cen­ter
247 East 82^nd Street
(Phone: 646−422−0544; email: info@​philoctetes.​org)

This event is free and open to the public.

Per­sian Poetry: Ori­gins, Trans­la­tions, and Influences

This read­ing and dis­cus­sion among five dis­tin­guished Per­sian poets and trans­la­tors will begin by touch­ing on the two-thousand year his­tory of poetry in Iran. Pan­elists will high­light the sig­nif­i­cance of such clas­si­cal mas­ters as Sa’di, Hafez, Rumi, and Omar Khayyam, as well as con­tem­po­rary Iran­ian poets like Nima Youshij and For­ough Far­rokhzad. Spe­cial atten­tion will be given to what often gets lost in Eng­lish trans­la­tion. The poets will con­sider how their under­stand­ing of Per­sian verse and cul­ture, from its ori­gins in Iran, influ­ences the poetry they and oth­ers write in English.

Iraj Anvar is the trans­la­tor and edi­tor of Jalal al Din Rumi’s Divani-I Shams-I Tabriz: Forty Eight Ghaz­als of Rumi. He has been a leader of the New York Ava Ensem­ble, which is ded­i­cated to pro­mot­ing tra­di­tional Per­sian music and per­form­ing clas­si­cal Per­sian poetry.

Richard Jef­frey New­man is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor in the Eng­lish Depart­ment at Nas­sau Com­mu­nity Col­lege, where he coor­di­nates the college’s Cre­ative Writ­ing Project. He has pub­lished trans­la­tions of two books of clas­si­cal Iran­ian poetry, Selec­tions from Saadi’s Gulis­tan and Selec­tions from Saadi’s Bus­tan, and a poetry col­lec­tion of his own, enti­tled The Silence of Men.

Roger Sedarat is the author of a col­lec­tion of poems, Dear Régime: Let­ters to the Islamic Repub­lic, and a forth­com­ing chap­book, From Tehran to Texas. He teaches poetry and trans­la­tion in the MFA pro­gram at Queens Col­lege, City Uni­ver­sity of New York.

Nilo­u­far Talebi is the edi­tor and trans­la­tor of BELONGING: New Poetry by Ira­ni­ans Around the World and founder of The Trans­la­tion Project, which brings con­tem­po­rary Iran­ian lit­er­a­ture to the world through events and lit­er­ary and mul­ti­me­dia projects. Inspired by Iran­ian sto­ry­telling tra­di­tions, she dra­ma­tizes new Iran­ian poetry in the­ater projects such as ICARUS/RISE.

Katay­oon Zandvakili’s col­lec­tion of poetry, Deer Table Legs, won the Uni­ver­sity of Geor­gia Press Con­tem­po­rary Poetry Series prize, and her work has been anthol­o­gized in Amer­i­can Poetry: The Next Gen­er­a­tion; Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been: New Writ­ing by Women of the Iran­ian Dias­pora; Lan­guage for a New Cen­tury: Con­tem­po­rary Poetry from the Mid­dle East, Asia and Beyond; and The Poetry of Iran­ian Women.

All Philoctetes pro­grams are sup­ported, in part, by pub­lic funds from the New York City Depart­ment of Cul­tural Affairs, in part­ner­ship with the City Council.

_______________________

Events at Philoctetes are free and open to the pub­lic. Seat­ing is on a first come basis.

The Philoctetes Cen­ter for the Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Study of the Imag­i­na­tion was estab­lished to pro­mote an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary approach to the under­stand­ing of cre­ativ­ity and the imag­i­na­tive process. To achieve its mis­sion, the Cen­ter orga­nizes round­table dis­cus­sions and music, poetry and film series. All pro­grams are free and open to the pub­lic. Visit www​.philoctetes​.org for more infor­ma­tion.