What is it about the homeland that creates feelings such as nostalgia, love, longing, and patriotism? Is it the material aspect, the beauty of nature, and its accompanying blessing that motivate the feelings of the poets? Or is it something more spiritual or intellectual such as love, the longing of seeing a loved one, or is it perhaps better defined as the research for freedom? As an Iranian-American poet, I wondered about those questions that interest me greatly, having been away from my homeland for more than a decade. I have been looking into contemporary Persian poetry and its precursors for answers. This text is an excerpt from a talk that I gave at UC Irvine in November 2015. This talk was made into a larger study, written for the most part in Persian.
This English extract of The Idea of Homeland in Modern Persian Poetry was published by the American Iranian Association (AIS) Newsletter, Spring 2020.
.jpg)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment