Poetry of Iranian Women: a Contemporary Anthology captures the words, the world and much of the creative spirit that characterize Iranian women of the turn of the twenty-first century. The voice that comes through this book is daring rather than desperate, decisive rather than doleful, and fairly composed, given the constraints that govern the lives of the featured poets, as women and as artists. In bringing this chorus of creativity to life, Sheema Kalbasi has performed a service that will be remembered for long. Dr. Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak |
|
Sheema Kalbasi has edited a groundbreaking anthology Poetry of Iranian Women, full of passionate and vital poems that speak of universal themes with grace, craft, sensual imagery, and sociopolitical angst. This compendium affords a wonderful opportunity to learn what is being written today by women of this ancient Persian culture of the Mid-East cradle of civilization. These works are by renowned and accomplished Iranian poets who live all over the world from Iran to California to New York or London. From highly accomplished authors such as Roya Hakakian, a journalist who writes for the Washington Post, the Weekly Forward, and her memoir of growing up a Jewish teenager in post-revolutionary Iran was Elle Magazine's Best Nonfiction Book to Katayoon Zandvakili whose book of poems, Deer Table Legs, won the University of Georgia Press Contemporary Poetry Series prize. This breathtaking collection of Iranian women's poems is an event not to be missed.
|
Sheema Kalbasi is a gifted poet and poetry community leader. Her passion for her Persian birthright and language has made me wish to be Persian. This is how intense her devotion and love is to her roots. Sheema has created this volume of poetry with great force and desire. It transcends nationalities simultaneously highlighting the passion and dignity of the poetic collection it embodies. The Poetry of Iranian Women is a spiritual regeneration from artists who have taken back their god, their religion, their home and most importantly themselves.
|
