Ever since my three visits to Iran in the years 1973, 1976, and 1978, I fell in love with Persian poetry. Poetry was everywhere in Iran in those years; one could simply walk into a bookstore and buy a copy of a poem of a favorite poet or the work of a new entry which are sometimes illustrated and displayed on walls. Poetry was always an important expression of life in Persia (Iran) beginning with Hakim Ferdowsi's great historical/ mythological epic, Shahnahmeh (The Book of Kings) to the well-known Rubaiyat (Odes) of Omar Khayyam and the magnificent love poems of the three Sufi poets, Jalaluddin Rumi, Muhammad Hafiz, and Saadi Shirazi. This book includes the five poets above as well as two relatively modern poets Forough Farrokhzad and Ahmad Shamloo.
