September 19, 2025
Introduction
“greetings,” Forough Farrokhzad writes in Arash Saedinia’s translation, “i will again give.” This folio shares Farrokhzad’s greetings, inextricable from their meanderings, doubts, and resourcefulness, while giving them, too, to her […]
August 21, 2025
Postcolonial Novel
Hijacking Richie Hofmann’s “French Novel”You were my second intifada,You had dark eyes and hairLike the painting of an Arab.We lay on our stomachs, digging tunnels in our homeland.I emailed my […]
August 21, 2025
When the Arab Apocalypse Comes to America
And here I ama woman aloneat the threshold of a cold season — Forough Farrokhzad, "Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season," translated by Elizabeth T. […]
August 9, 2025
My Eve of No Nation
Hijacking Philip Metres's "My Heart Like a Nation" Of course you have set my verse on fire. — Forough Farrokhzad, translated by Elizabeth T. GrayYou who cannot throw off exile,who, […]
August 8, 2025
Aftab Mishavad in Three Sequential Triptychs
Artist Statement The work presented here visualizes and makes spatial the poem “Aftab Mishavad” by ForoughFarrokhzad. Farrokhzad depicts an optimistic continuum with this poem, In an act ratheruncharacteristic of her. […]
February 14, 2025
Night (I)
The Kenyon Review · “Night (1)” by Shabnam Piryaei I light a candle, a shadow floating around me, an unceded heart, an astronaut’s ear gripping a telegraph through the abyss. […]
February 12, 2025
You’re My Midas’ Touch
Tired and tense, a day of offense, sweaty and buttery, then sweet home, a wide smile to me, wrinkle ’companies, frown line fades, heart eyes me loose over your thighs, […]
February 12, 2025
This Madness
The Kenyon Review · “This Madness” by Saima Afreen this alive clay composition! you can makegods out of it and whisper in their warm earsall the ninety-nine names, each one […]
February 12, 2025
Four Poems after Forough’s “Another Birth”
The Kenyon Review · Four Poems by Souri Ahmadlou translated by Morteza Dehghani I think that all stars have moved to a lost sky and the city, how silent the […]
February 12, 2025
Greetings To
At last each finds himself alone to face his destiny. No children, no spouse, no God no devil are available or able to render help. I see life as a […]
February 12, 2025
Another Birth
The Kenyon Review · “Another Birth” by Sahar Delijani It is the beginning of another hot, arid day of summer. A pearl-gray haze of heat is dispersed so evenly over […]
February 12, 2025
Sleep
The Kenyon Review · “Sleep’ by Mahta Riazi I sleep thinking of maman every night, of orange peels. She calls twice a day the first week and asks for every […]