Seven Valleys of Love, new Iranian poetry anthology

A new book of poetry called Seven Valleys of Love by Sheema Kalbasi looking at the works of Iranian female poets from Middle Ages Persia to contemporary Iran. (Hat tip to Kamangir)

Those Days

Those days

Poetry

Was my room

And wherever I felt unsafe

I gravitated into its eternal sanctuary.

These days

There aren’t any rooms

That can harbor me against the crowd

and behind every window

inside and outside every room

a two-faced clown sneers.

Fereshteh Sari (more samples from the book )

The book can be purchased online on Amazon. Some donations will proceed to a breast cancer research center in Connecticut.

It may not seem as though there have been many Iranian female poets or writers published, but there are certainly more than any other country (bar Israel) in the Middle East. There are several good anthologies of Iranian womens' fiction out there too. I think Palestine, Iran and maybe Lebanon stand out as being the countries in the region with the most thriving literary cultures.