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 82nd 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 Regime: 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.
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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.
