Persian Poets

Conceived and organized by Arezoo Moseni, the Art and Literature Series events at the New York Public Library have highlighted intersections across the literary and visual arts with readings and discussions by acclaimed artists, authors, and poets for the last six years. In this iteration, literary figures Porochista Khakpour, Roger Sedarat, Elizabeth T. Gray Jr., Tom Sleigh, and Don Share gather to discuss and illuminate the issues that make Persian poetry more pertinent than ever to our own time and contemporary literature. One major figure in this conversation is Basil Bunting, one of the most important English poets of the twentieth century, admired early on by Ezra Pound and Louis Zukofsky, and acknowledged since the 1930s as a major figure in the Modernist movement. Don Share annotates Bunting’s often complex and allusive verse, with illuminating quotes from his prose writings, interviews and correspondence. Share also examines Bunting’s sources (including Persian literature and classical mythology), and explores the Northumbrian roots of Bunting’s poetic vocabulary and use of dialect.

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