The Essential Voices series intends to bridge English-language readers to cultures misunderstood and under- or misrepresented. It has at its heart the ancient idea that poetry can reveal our shared humanity. The anthology features 130 poets and translators from ten countries, including Garous Abdolmalekian, Kaveh Akbar, Kazim Ali, Reza Baraheni, Kaveh Bassiri, Simin Behbahani, Mark S. Burrows, Athena Farrokhzad, Forugh Farrokhzad, Persis Karim, Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, Sara Khalili, Mimi Khalvati, Esmail Khoi, Abbas Kiarostami, Fayre Makeig, Anis Mojgani, Yadollah Royai, Amir Safi, SAID, H.E. Sayeh, Roger Sedarat, Sohrab Sepehri, Ahmad Shamlu, Solmaz Sharif, Niloufar Talebi, Jean Valentine, Stephen Watts, Sholeh Wolpé, Nima Yushij, and many others.

Between arm-flexing states, the U.S. and Iran, the past burns and the future is held hostage. In a twilight present tense, the poets emerge, sure-footed and graceful, imagining another way, another vision of being. The range of these Iranian poets is prodigious and dizzying. Sometimes they "consider the saga of a bee / humming over minefields / in pursuit of a flower," sometimes they "bring your lips near / and pour your voice / into my mouth." Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora is a place where heartbreak and hope gather. At the shores of language, drink this bracing, slaking music.   

—Philip Metres, author of Shrapnel Maps


Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and its Diaspora takes the extraordinary position that poetic arts from the homeland and diaspora should be read alongside each other. This vital book invites English-language readers to step into a lineage and tradition where poems—from playful to elegiac, prosaic to ornate—are fundamental to everyday living. It is the kind of book that requires two copies: one to give to a beloved, and one to keep for oneself.   

—Neda Maghbouleh, author of The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian Americans and the Everyday Politics of Race


Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora offers a profoundly satisfying journey into the poetic canon of my homeland—an anthology with an ambition, expanse, depth, and diversity that truly earns its essential tag. So many poets I was hoping would be in here are here, from contemporary icons to new luminaries, plus I got to explore several poets I had never before read. Everyone from students of poetry to masters of the form should take this ride through the soul and psyche of Iran, which endures no matter where the border, beyond whatever the boundary!

—Porochista Khakpour, author of Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity


Iranians rely on poetry to give comfort, elevate the ordinary, and illuminate the darkness. Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and its Diaspora layers the work of the masters with fresh voices, using sensual imagery to piece together a society fractured by revolution, war, and exile. Let the poets lead you into an Iran beyond the news reports—a place where tenderness and humor and bitterness and melancholia balance together like birds on a wire, intricately connected and poised to take flight. 

—Tara Bahrampour, author of To See and See Again: A Life in Iran and America

• A review by Samad Alavi in World Literature Today (March 2, 2022)

• Reading from Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora, featuring Armen Davoudian, Farnaz Fatemi, Gary Gach, Zara Houshmand, Persis Karim, Mojdeh Marashi, and Sholeh Wolpé, presented by the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University and Diaspora Arts Connection (Feb. 12, 2022)

• Interview and Reading from Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora at The Hive Collective Poetry Podcast (Aug. 22, 2021)

• Reading from Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora, featuring Mansour Alimoradi, Kaveh Bassiri, Mandana Chaffa, Amin Fatemi, Mahdi Ganjavi, Fayre Makeig, Daniel Rafinejad, Parisa Saranj, and Ali Zarrin (Oct. 19, 2021)

• Reading from Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora, featuring Roja Chamankar, Armen Davoudian, Tyler Fisher, Gary Gach, Persis Karim, Haidar Khezri, Leyla Momeny, George Reiner, Siavash Saadlou, Niloufar Talebi (Oct. 20, 2021)