Ver Poets International Poetry Club Newsletter: Autumn 2012

Iranian New Wave Poetry

Bahareh Shirzad, MA student of the Theory and Practice of Translation at Middlesex University, gives an

outline of her dissertation on the subject of Iranian New Wave Poetry.

Poetry and literature have always played a key role in Iranian culture. There are many Iranian poets from

centuries ago whose their poetry is still on the desk, poets like: Rumi, Hafiz and Khayyam. Their mystic and

spiritual poems, the splendid poetry of love, joy and sorrow and multitude of dimensions seem to have brought

them eternal fame. Furthermore, from the contemporary poetry in Iran there are also great international poets

like: Sepehri, Farrokhzad, Shamlou and etc.

The field I am studying is contemporary poetry in Iran, especially the term “New Wave Poetry” and how it

relates to classical Iranian literature, striving to change the old cliché’s and traditions. Bijan Elahi, Ahmadreza

Ahmadi and Yadollah Royaee are the leaders of this movement while Ahmadreza Ahmadi is seen as the

founder of this genre.

In my recent poetry collection عاشقانه ای برای سیم های عور [Love Poems of Naked Wires] published in 2011, I

have suggested “The style of New Wave poetry is the manifestation of de-structuralism in poetry. Some

scholars scorn it and some consider it as a deliberate audaciousness and a novel phenomenon. “New Wave

poetry” is the style oversteps the clichés and routine styles of poetry and is born on the bed of exclusive

subtleties”.

Rhythm and New Wave

Ahmad Reza Ahmadi turns to non-rhythmic poetry which corresponded with free verse. His poems are mostly

lacking prosodic, even inner harmony. Putting the rhythm aside made many young poets welcome the new

wave. I personally think this is because of the economic, social and political chaos which reflected in poetry

and has a very bold spirit in poetry to show its identity and the rights of human beings and ultimately youth

movement.

Shams Langroudi defines “New Wave” features in his “Analytical History of the Modern Poetry” as follows:

1.Separation of practical and daily duty of the words and language from the words and language themselves.

2.Creation of different occasion and relations between words, pictures and objects.

3.Creation of a new and bizarre intellectual atmosphere, not by description and delineation, but by making an

atmosphere, not line by line, but in wholeness of a poem” ( Shadkhast,2006: 313-315).

As a researcher of this style I have focused on contemporary English poetry and endeavoured to offer a

framework to interpret it through its methodology. In other words, the structure of my research is an attempt to

introduce a genre which tries to develop contemporary English poetry, although its aim The will only be fully

realised including poems by Gerald England and Martyn Crucefix.

I hope you found this piece useful and engaging and forgive the effects of space limitation. My poem,

SORROW STRANDS is dedicated to a lady stoned in Iran.

SORROW STRANDS

Braid my hair

In shadows of night

Braid my hair

In silence of mirror

Braid my hair

In black apparel

Braid my hair

With a short whisper

Gazed into scissors eyes

Colourless, lifeless eyes

Beholds my sorrow

Death brushes mine

I'm going lighter

Becoming blanker

An illumination blooms

I'm becoming darker

As the braided sorrow detached

I'd settled in front of my infancy...