Eight Poems

Abbas Kiarostami (1940–2016) was an Iranian film director, poet, writer, producer, and visual artist. Among the titans of contemporary cinema, Kiarostami was also a devoted poet, composing several volumes of original poetry in his lifetime, in addition to curating anthologies of classical Persian verse.

Kaveh Akbar is the author of Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf Press, 2021).

Arman Salem is the winner of the 2026 Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. He is currently working on a book of the teachings of the eighth-century Sufi mystic Rabi’a al-’Adawiyya, forthcoming from the Modern Library in spring 2028.