Poetry
The place where I am not meant to explain
I have written more than a hundred poems in the ghazal, qasida, rubai and free-verse forms.
And then poetry — where I am no longer meant to teach anything or explain anything. I only have to feel, and write.
The forms
Three inherited from classical Persian verse, one modern. What follows describes the forms themselves, not the poems.
- 01
Ghazal
A short lyric of paired lines on a single rhyme, carried in the Persian tradition by love, longing and loss.
- 02
Qasida
The long form, holding one rhyme across many lines — room for an argument to be built rather than a moment to be caught.
- 03
Rubai
Four lines, and the whole turn of the thought has to happen inside them.
- 04
Free verse
The modern line, released from the fixed metre and rhyme of the classical forms.
Two decades
For close to two decades I have been writing poems. Writing has always been a way of quieting the mind, stepping back from everyday worries, and recording what passes through my mind and within me.
The poems
This section is for the poems. Any poem that arrives will arrive with its complete text and with the name of the form it was written in — not as a few lines selected out of it.
No poem texts are here yet.
The subjects
Poems about love, about people, the road, solitude, life, and the things ordinary conversation cannot quite find a word for.