Poetry
سرمه خورشید
Not translated into English
Nader Naderpour · 1960
Synopsis
Forty-one poems. In the title poem, the poet sees himself as a blind bird in the forest of the night, consuming itself like a wet log until the warm hand of the sun of love restores his sight with its kohl. Elsewhere, one evening, the wind slits the belly of the waters and the bloody fish of the sun falls on the shore; a bad spring buries its sun alive; one poem asks, between hope and illusion, whether the sea will one day rise; others speak of desire, snow, the night black as mud.
Context
The author's fourth collection, it appeared in 1960 with Sokhan, preceded by a preface, “The Goal and the Key”, in which the poet says he writes only out of necessity, renounces the ghazal and wants a poetry that is the mirror of life. The orientalist Franciszek Machalski, who studied it shortly afterwards, noted in it free verse, European-style rhymes and unprecedented metaphors, but a poetry more intimate than social. A selection of his poems from 1947 to 1962 appeared in 1963, under a cover painted by Sohrab Sepehri.
Who it is for
A collection of short poems, in Persian. It helps to know that the verse is free there, but that rhyme and music count for a great deal.
Prizes and reception
Named book of the year by the Book Society in 1960; its title poem is among the most famous of its author's poems.