The Oasis of Now: Selected Poems

by Sohrab Sepehri, Kazim Ali (Translation), Mohammad Jafar Mahallati (Translation)

The Oasis of Now is the first U.S. book publication of the works of Sohrab Sepehri (1928�1980), one of the major Iranian poets of the twentieth century. Well-versed in Buddhism, mysticism, and Western traditions, Sepehri mingled Western concepts with Eastern ones, creating a poetry unsurpassed in the history of Persian literature. In Iran, his Persian verses are often recited in public gatherings and lines from them were used as slogans by the protesters in 2009. This first full-length American volume collects poems from three of Sepehri's most important books, including the highly acclaimed Water's Footfall.

I want to know:
Why is a horse noble and the dove beloved
but no one keeps a pet vulture in a gilded cage.
Why is the humble clover trodden upon rather than the red tulip.
I want to see anew and wash the words of the world
in wind and rain.

Sohrab Sepehri wrote the poems collected in The Oasis of Now after traveling through Japan, China, and India, where he was exposed to the arts of those countries as well as the spiritual disciplines of Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism. This book is crucial for anyone interested in Iranian arts and culture.

Kazim Ali is author of ten books of poetry, fiction, essays, and translations. He is an associate professor at Oberlin College and founding editor of Nightboat Books.

Mohammad Jafar Mahallati is Presidential Scholar in the religion department of Oberlin College. He served as Iran's ambassador to the United Nations from 1987 to 1989 and was instrumental in brokering a peace agreement between Iran and Iraq during that time.

Genres: Poetry, Iran

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Sohrâb Sepehrî (Persian: سهراب سپهری‎) (October 7, 1928 - April 21, 1980) was a notable modern Persian poet and a painter.

He was born in Kashan in Isfahan province. He is considered to be one of the five most famous modern Persian (Iranian) poets who have practised "New Poetry" (a kind of poetry that often has neither meter nor rhyme).

Sohrab Sepehri was also one of Iran's foremost modernist painters.

Sepehri died in Pars hospital in Tehran of leukemia. His poetry is full of humanity and concern for human values. He loved nature and refers to it frequently. The poetry of Sohrab Sepehri bears great resemblance to that of E.E. Cummings.

Well-versed in Buddhism, mysticism and Western traditions, he mingled the Western concepts with Eastern ones, thereby creating a kind of poetry unsurpassed in the history of Persian literature. To him, new forms were new means to express his thoughts and feelings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sohrab_S...


سهراب سپهری (۱۵ مهر ۱۳۰۷ در کاشان – ۱ اردیبهشت ۱۳۵۹ در تهران) شاعر و نقاش ایرانی بود. او از مهم‌ترین شاعران معاصر ایران است و شعرهایش به زبان‌های بسیاری از جمله انگلیسی، فرانسوی، اسپانیایی و ایتالیایی ترجمه شده‌است. ستایش طبیعت و روستا و همچنین توجه به عرفان و نگرش توحیدی از مهم ترین مضامین شعری او بودند. وی پس از ابتلا به بیماری سرطان خون در بیمارستان پارس تهران درگذشت.

دورهٔ ابتدایی را در دبستان خیام کاشان (شهید مدرّس فعلی) (۱۳۱۹) و متوسّطه را در دبیرستان پهلوی کاشان خرداد ۱۳۲۲ گذراند و پس از فارغ‌التحصیلی در دورهٔ دوسالهٔ دانشسرای مقدماتی پسران به استخدام ادارهٔ فرهنگ کاشان درآمد.در شهریور ۱۳۲۷ در امتحانات ششم ادبی شرکت نمود و دیپلم دوره دبیرستان خود را دریافت کرد. سپس به تهران آمد و در دانشکده هنرهای زیبای دانشگاه تهران به تحصیل پرداخت و هم زمان به استخدام شرکت نفت در تهران درآمد که پس از ۸ ماه استعفا داد. سپهری در سال ۱۳۳۰ نخستین مجموعهٔ شعر نیمایی خود را به نام مرگ رنگ منتشر کرد. در سال ۱۳۳۲ از دانشکده هنرهای زیبا فارغ التحصیل شد و نشان درجه اول علمی را دریافت کرد. در همین سال در چند نمایشگاه نقاشی در تهران شرکت نمود و نیز دومین مجموعهٔ شعر خود را با عنوان زندگی خواب‌ها منتشر کرد. در آذر ۱۳۳۳ در ادارهٔ کل هنرهای زیبا (فرهنگ و هنر) در قسمت موزه‌ها شروع به کار کرد و در هنرستان‌های هنرهای زیبا نیز به تدریس می‌پرداخت

http://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B3%D...


http://www.sohrabsepehri.com

http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/8...

see also Sohrab Sepehri
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Reviews

[Eadweard · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5
Beautiful, dizzying, mesmerizing.

Sergei Parajanov's The Color of Pomegranates in literary form.



16

A crack in the wall fights off the persistent advances of the sunlight.
Stairs struggle against the Sun’s long leg.
Loneliness fights the song.
Pears ache to fill the empty basket.
Pomegranate’s jewel-seeds refuse to burst under the teeth’s insistence.
Fascists march on the delicate touch-me-nots.
Parrot outdone by eloquence.
Forehead pushes itself against the cold clay prayer tablet.

Mosque tiles unpeel from the walls, flying toward defenseless worshipers.
Wind thrusts apart the rising soap bubbles.
Butterfly-army takes on the Pest Control Program. Dragonfly-swarm versus Water Main Workers.
Regiments of calligraphy pens storm the printshop assaulting the leaden fonts.
Poetry clogs the throat of the poet.

Century undone by a poem.
Orchard beaten by a starling.
Alleyway conquered by two of us saying salaam.
Town defeated by a handful of wooden horsemen.
Every eid conquered by the troop of ceramic dolls.

A baby’s rattle murdered on the mattress.
A story killed at the alley-opening of sleep.
Sorrow done in by song.
Moonlight shot at command of neon-lit night.
Willow tree strangled by order of the government.

17-18

I am close to the beginning of the earth.
I check the pulse of each flower.
I divine water’s wet fate, the tree’s green destiny.

My spirit flows in new directions, following all matter.
My youthful spirit coughs out its longing.
Without other meaningful employment, it spends its days counting raindrops that slowly mark the lines of mortar between the bricks.
My soul is true as a rock in the road.

18-19

Life, that pleasant chore, has wings and feathers wide as Death
and launches itself skyward searching for love.
Life should not be unmoving in our mind like a jar on the habit-shelf, just another little task on the list of things to do.
Life is like the hand that aches to pluck June’s not yet ripe figs.
Like a sycamore refracted in the fly’s myriad eyes.
It is a bat flying in the dark, the migrating bird’s strange directional instinct.
Life is like a train blowing its whistle in the daydreams of the lonely tunnel-bridge.
Like from the airplane’s windows it is a distant garden seen.
Newspaper coverage of a rocket launching spaceward.

21

Our mission is not to unpetal the rose’s layered secret. Maybe our mission is to float, drunk on the mystery of the rose.
Let’s pitch our tents on the other side of the hill from Knowing.

28

Let’s not stir up any mud in the water.
Downstream, a pigeon may be drinking or a thrush in the thicket having a bath.
Or someone in the village filling a pitcher.
Let’s not stir up any mud in the water.
Maybe it flows past the poplar on its way to soothe some lonely soul, or the wandering dervish is there, soaking his dry bread crusts.

63

Into the breathing of my loneliness send splinters of my intelligence.
Send me flying after the kite of that other day.
Take me to the solitude of life’s wan measurements
and show me the presence of soft Nothing.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Life should not be unmoving in our mind like a jar on the habit-shelf, just another little task of the things to do.

Life is like the hand that aches
to pluck June's not-yet-ripe figs.

Life is like washing a dish.

Like finding silver coins shining in the gutter.

Earth multipled by our heartbeats.

The simple geometry of breath.

Wherever I am, let me be there."


"Let's forget about everything.

Let's pitch our tent on the the other side of the hill of Knowing.

Wash our hands in the leaf's green ecstasy and prepare the picnic.

Let's be reborn when the sun dawns.

Let's unleash everything."

~Selections from "Water's Footfall" by Sohrab Sepehri, tr. from the Persian (Iran) by Kazim Ali and Mohammed Jafar Mahallati / featured in THE OASIS OF NOW: Selected Poems of Sohrab Sepehri, 2013 by BOA Editions.

Sepehri's long-form nature-infused poem "Water's Footfall" was a complete joy to read. This poem is about one-third of the book, and is intoxicating: Sufi mysticism fused with forest bathing and meditation.

Short pieces make up the rest of this collection. Equally beautiful and evocative in theme, bit for me, the long lyric was the favorite. Looking forward to reading more by this well-known Iranian 20th-century poet and artist.

[Edita · Rating 4 out of 5]

One should cross the river,
accompany the far horizon;
one should sometimes settle in the vein of a single
word.

One should cross and eat mulberries from the tip of
the branch.
I was walking on the shores of Lyricism.
It was the rich season, the season of blessings.

And under my feet the sands shifted.

A woman heard and came to the window,
looking out, checking the weather.

So young and so delicately
her hands plucked the dew of minutes
from the body of death’s feelings.

I paused. The sun of Lyricism rose high in the sky.

I pondered the evaporation of dreams,
counting the number of times that branches of a
strange tree
stroke the body of the mind.

We thought we had no margins.
We thought
we were floating amidst legendary debates in the
sacred texts.

And that few seconds of negligence is our present
existence.

[Krys · Rating 5 out of 5]

My rating isn't for the poems translated in this book but for the fleeting glimpse I've had into the poetry of Sohrab Sepehri, whom I believe is a true original in this world. I came to his work via Iranian cinema and my favourite filmmakers Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Kiarostami, who have both named Sepehri as one of their favourite poets. Kiarostami's film Where Is The Friend's House? is also titled after Sepehri's poem of the same name and is dedicated to him. To encounter Sepehri's poetry is to experience the world constantly shifting beneath your feet via multiple levels of perception, not unlike the elusive self-reflexivity and lyricism that presided over the Iranian New Wave in the 90s.

I can't vouch for the translation of these poems from Persian, which I suspect is rather literal. Take for example the translation of a verse from a poem titled 'Light, Me, Flower, Water':

No clouds, no wind--
I crouch at the edge of the garden fountain.
Fish swirling within--light, me, flower, water--
vines overhead with clusters of pure green life hanging down.

This same poem is translated as 'Illuminations' by Jerome W. Clinton, which appears in Words Without Borders as:

A cloudless sky,
no breath of wind,
I sit beside the courtyard pool.
The slow stirrings of the goldfish,
the radiance and I,
the earth and water---
Life clusters in a fresh washed bunch.

Make of that what you will. I'll end with one of my favourite poems of his, brought to life in English by yet another translator, Franklin Lewis.

Toward the Image of the Friend

The moon
was the copper of scriptural gloss
rising like the sorrow of explication
The cypress
a stark cry of the soil
The pine, in close
like a mound of understanding
inking the blank page of the season
The stiff lines of globe thistles
read like Kufic script
The vapors of realization were mustering,
rising from the dark loam-lands

The Friend
touching the nets of awareness
felt the filaments cast over things
He heard the fluid sentence of the stream
It murmured to itself (so it seemed):
There are no words so limpid as this

I was near the rivulet,
thinking:
How clear tonight
the path of ascension for
all things.

[Marc Mannheimer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb writing. To be honest, I did not read the third section -- the subject matter did not interest me as much as the first two -- but Sepehri was as insightful and gently elegant as Rumi or Hafiz. His images are not merely clever, they speak of a firm immersion in the wisdom he expresses. With nothing to compare the translation of Kazim Ali and his colleague to, I can't speak with certainty, but the words do flow with such ease and candor that the work seems to have been originally written in English (while it actually was not).

[Niilo · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I will reconcile, understand, walk on.
I will drink light
I will love."

Even that I do not speak Persian, I think that it is difficult to find good translations of Persian poetry. This is an excellent translation of sublime poetry.

[Grant Hartley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dazzling; demands to be savored.

"One should cross the river,
accompany the far horizon;
one should sometimes settle in the vein of a single word."

[moonshaped ♡]

"𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘦,
𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘧𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘭𝘺, 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵
𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘶𝘱𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴."

[Alex Chao · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars because it made me cry my brains out. The book itself is thin and easy to carry off somewhere quiet

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book of poetry, recommend.

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. A thoughtfulness in nearly every line that surprises with its insight and beauty. The final section, "The Traveller," is not as strong as the first two, which make up the bulk of the book, but that's a quibble in light of this deeply stirring collection.