A reading in Persian by Houshang Ebtehaj (Sayeh) on Sunday, December 09, 2012

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H.E. Sayeh (Houshang Ebtehaj) is one of the most important Iranian poets of the twentieth century. His many books exhibit a hybrid of political poetry and traditional Iranian verse in the lineage of Persian masters, Rumi and Hafiz; though in the style of modern innovator, Nima Yushij, his work emphasizes current issues of Iranian society. He is a leading musicologist in Iranian classical music, and a world-renowned Hafiz scholar. Sayeh¹s books of poetry include First Songs (1946), Mirage (1951), Bleak Travails (1953), Earth (1955), Pages from the Longest Night (1965), Bleak Travails II (1973), Until the Dawn of the Longest Night (1981), Memorial to the Blood of the Cypress (1981), Bleak Travails III (1985), Bleak Travails IV (1992), Mirror in Mirror, Selected Poems (Edited by M.R. shafie-Kadkani, 1995) and Bleak Travails V (1999), Dispirited (2006). Sayeh lives alternately in Cologne, Germany and in Tehran, Iran. Selected poems of Sayeh has been translated in to English by Chad Sweeney & Mojdeh Marashi  in a book called “The Art of Stepping Through Time “.

“[Sayeh’s poems] are of such quality and beauty that like golden coins they will immortalize Sayeh’s name in the Persian language.”

– Mehdi Akhavan-Sales

“Sayeh’s poetry is a continuation of the aesthetics of Hafez’s poetic style. From the time that Hafez introduced his style of poetry, which has been admired by people all over the world, until now, many great poets have tried to fly in the sky of his art . . . but no one has been as successful as Sayeh. [For] more than half a century all Persian poetry lovers have filled their memories with Sayeh’s poems, and if we had a true statistic of the memories of those who know the works of all living poets of our time by heart, we would see that none can compete with Sayeh. Many of Sayeh’s verses have become current expressions . . . .”

– Shafii Kadkani

Published: Monday, December 17, 2012

از راست هوشنگ ابتهاج، سیاوش کسرایی، نیما یوشیج، احمد شاملو و مرتضی کیوان