Hafez ~ “Made New”

table of contents

| Introduction | Excerpts | Reviews |
| Interviews | Readings |
| Persian Poetry Audio Samples | 
| Media : Press Room |

Plus ~~~~~ | The “New” | Rescuing Poetry from Stifling Bifurcations | The Audio Edition |  Literary  Crime ~ Cultural Erasure ~ Islamophobia | The Launch Reading | Online Ordering 


INTRODUCTION : Gardens of the World, Wine, Love, Wisdom & Ecstasy

IT IS apt for classics of non-native world literature to be “made new” for contemporary generations.*  Hafez is no exception. On a par with Basho, Emily Dickinson, Du Fu, Goethe, Pushkin, Sappho, Lady Shikibu, etc, ~ he’s also in a class by himself within Persian letters, at the apex of centuries of lyric poetry. ** Moreover, Iran is a Bardic civilization, where words of its poets have been seen and heard in daily life for centuries. And for those wondering about Iran today, beyond photos seen in newspapers, Hafez opens a window onto the hearts of everyday Iranian people.

As point of departure, we looked to adaptations (vignettes) by renowned filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. When his innovative adaptations were first published, there was considerable pushback. However, over time, sales proved people realizing how centuries of reverence for Hafiz needed an update.

One can dip in anywhere. Or, taking it as an unfolding journey ( caravan ? ) ~ it traverses five realms. It begins with the world at hand. You might note how apt today are Hafez’s observations made in the 14th century. His is not a mysticism divorced from the environment in which he lives. The state of the world can lead one to seek escape, and next comes the realm of wine. Yet here it’s an initiation, a taste of the better world we know in our hearts is possible. Feelings of isolation now turn to the world of love, where human yearning for union with another human mirrors our longing to return to the Source. This becomes a point of departure to the realm of wisdom, where the mundane and the divine intertwine. Capping it all off, a taste of ecstasy, a joyous going beyond the confines of “a skin-encapsulated ego.”

Included is a historical profile of Hafez (with a specially commissioned map of phases of the Persian Empire), an extensive glossary (including numerous Sufi terms), in-depth translators’ notes, and a bibliography. The foreword is a marvelous blessing by Ari Honarvar ( author of Rumi with a View and Rumi’s Gift Oracle Cards ). The audio edition is beautifully narrated by veteran voice-artist Samara Naeymi. ***

More than just a new bottle for the ancient wine of Hafez, we hope his bones might live anew ~ that he may come alive and dance, and we with him. 

Nautilus Award for Translation
Nautilus Award for Translation

Here’s a range of the ripples the book has been making in the world in its first year out.

Excerpts

  • Excerpt + video introduction by Gary Gach & Erfan Mojib, in The Markaz Review : 13 selected particularly for these times. July 2024.
  • Excerpt + commentary by Ivan M Grainger at Poetry Chaikhana ~ Sacred Poetry from Around the World. Hafiz ~ I feel this yen. October 2024. Contends with the fine poetry of Daniel Ladinsky having no Persian originals, then proceeds to a deep reading of two of the seven selections, and touches upon Hafez as oracle.
  • Excerpt in Evergreen Review ~ The Iran Issue ~ edited by Porochista Khakpour. Illustrated. Spring/Summer 2023.
  • Excerpt in Kosmos – Journal for Global Transformation – The Ageless Spirit, Call To Action Issue. Hafiz: Illuminating the Eternal Spirit of Love: illustrated, preceded by historical background. 2023.


Reviews

Interviews

  • Top of our list is Banyen Books‘ one-hour Branches of Wisdom webinar with Ari Honarvar and Gary Gach, hosted by Jacob Steele ( whose Persian is impeccable ).
  • Hafiz: Mystical Poet of Persia ~ Inter View with clinical psychologist, parapsychologist, and veteran broadcasterJeffrey Mishlove, New Thinking Allowed 11/20/23.

Readings

Persian Poetry Audio Samples

The pen name “Hafez” means One Who Memorizes, as for one who has memorized the Quran. Hafez of Shiraz not only knew the Quran by heart, but could recite it over a dozen ways. “Recite” here has a range of meanings ~ reading aloud, exclaiming, chanting, singing. Here are a half-dozen ways Hafez himself could be recited in Persian.

  • Poet Shamloo’s recitation of Hafez.
  • A short sample of classical Hafez recitation. Voice: H E Sayeh. Kamancheh: Keyhan Kalhor.
  • Mohammadreza Shajarian renders Ghazal 69, I See No Love in Anyone.
  • Something more avant garde / contemporary : Mohsen Namloo, with a symphony orchestra.
  • Here is another with Mohsen Namjoo, this time with the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble.
  • Here is another take on the same ghazal, performed by the son of Maestro Mohammadreza Shajarian, Homayoun. 
  • A compelling example of suspense in Persian classical music – Shahram Nazeri sings a ghazal by Hafez . Notice how the performance builds tension, reaching a climax at around the 3:50 mark & then again at 4:40  etc. showcasing Nazeri’s mastery of vocal and emotional expression.
  • Nazeri’s style is notably different from that of Mohammad Reza Shajarian, who takes a more traditional approach to classical Persian music. For a conventional example, consider a performance where Shajarian and his son present a complete concert experience. Like any other traditional Persian classical music concert it starts with a pishdaramad, an instrumental prelude that sets the tone and establishes the dastgah (melodic mode). Shajarian then performs avaz, an improvised vocal section that highlights the emotional and melodic qualities of the dastgah, often featuring intricate vocal ornamentations known as tahrir. This is interwoven with instrumental solos (saz), creating a dialogue between voice and instruments. The concert builds toward a tasnif, a structured song that provides a climactic moment, blending rhythmic and melodic elements. Performances may modulate to a different dastgah, showcasing versatility, and often end with another tasnif or a lively reng (dance piece), concluding the event on an uplifting note.


Media : Press Room

-=> Press Release
-=> Talking Points
-=> Endorsements

A radical collaboration between a Persian and American, this is a break-through version of the most untranslatable classical Sufi poet. Gach and Mojib have carved genuine gems from Hafiz’s Persian and set them in a bezel composed of space, time, and the reader’s own openness to wisdom. This is translation as a real “carrying-across,” as art not artifact. While previous translations attempted to be re-en­actments (like re-enacting an old battle in faux costumes), this one drops the reader/listener directly into their own soul-struggle. Immerse yourself and be transformed !
– Neil Dou­glas-Klotz, author of The Sufi Book of Life and The Aramaic Jesus


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The New

English-speakers have no need to retranslate Blake, Emily Dickinson, or Shakespeare (‘tho Shakespeare’s often performed in post-Elizabethan settings). New translations of non-native authors, on the other hand, can make them more accessible & vital to new generations. Poet-translator-critic-editor Ezra Pound used his translation of a line of Confucius ( literally ” New Day Day New ” ) in 1934 as a rallying cry for jettisoning stale, musty, worn-out literature for a breath of fresh air consonant with the present moment. That moment coalesced with others to become a historical vector known as Modernism.

In that vein, when Abbas Kiarostami published his innovative adaptations of Hafez, he prefaced his edition with an epigraph from forerunner of Modernism, poet French Arthur Rimbaud ( 1854 – 1891 ) : “One must be absolutely modern.” After all, presentations of Hafez hadn’t changed for six centuries. And yet, over the course of its venerable history, Iranian culture has experienced several modernisms. Imagine, for example, what it must be like for Hafez to live in times that had experienced successive layers … for example, of nature-worship & polytheism extending back to pre-literate times ( Ahura Mazda, Mithra, Vayu, etc ) … then Zorastrianism ( the Axial Age ) … next Islam … while also experiencing influx of Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, etc. This can be sensed in instances where Hafez paraphrases other poets, past and present, and the Quran, in his own manner. [ For more in this vein, please see Hamid Dabashi’s majestic, trenchant World of Persian Literary Humanism. “Persian literary humanism is an alternative theory to modernity, not an alternative modernity.” ]

Initial responses in Iran to Abbas Kiarostami’s modern adaptations of Hafez, Rumi, & Sa’adi were initially met with outrage. It took people getting over “the shock of the new,” & subsequent popular sales reflected a broad acceptance & appreciation. The same might hold true for our renditions. As Neil Douglas-Klotz remarks in his endorsement : “While previous translations attempted to be re-en­actments (like re-enacting an old battle in faux costumes), this one drops the reader/listener directly into their own soul-struggle.”

Just one more thing. The e-book & audio edition lack one feature. For various reasons, we drew upon Stephane Mallarmé’s 189t “revolution of the word.” We are referring to his book-length poem Coup de Dés (Dice Throw). There, the traditional separation between left- and right-hand pages of the book was immediately abolished. At the same stroke, poetry was also liberated from its entrenched phallic columnar display format. And much more. In short, he transformed the book as a reading device into a spiritual instrument.


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Calligraphed (possibly in 1417 AH lunar/1996-97) in the bold nasta’liq script by the contemporary Iranian calligrapher, Kurosh Mozaffarbegi کوروش مظفربیگی . Signed, Mozaffarbegi مظفربيگی
Courtesy of Alan Godlas. https://www.100honar.com/Home/ContestantFile/180513

Rescuing Poetry from Bifurcations


( Oral -vs- Written ; Philosophy -vs- Poetry ; High -vs- Low, etc )

It’s perfectly natural when the philosophy of Sufism spills over into poetry. Poetry is an ideal vehicle for what’s beyond ordinary speech. So Westerners often first know of Persian philosophy & Sufism through poetry (Attar, Hafez, Omar Khayyam, Rumi, Sa’adi). In so doing, however, Westerners might also mistake the poetry & the philosophy as being two separate entities. They’re not. Persian philosophy (such as Sufism) and Persian lyric poetry (such as Rumi, Hafez, Sa’adi) do not not automatically split themselves into isolated categories.
Contrast this with Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching: written in discrete lines and musicality – poetry – yet commercial bookshops shelve it under Philosophy/Spirituality/Eastern Religion. Similarly, when God speaks to Job he speaks in poetry, yet the book is commonly found in Religion / Bibles. And yet, still today, Rumi (Omar Khayyam, Hafez, Attar), get shelved under Poetry.
Also, as noted above, the lyric poetry of Hafez is literally lyrics ~ originally appreciated as song.
For resolution of the situation, we might turn to the first of the nine points of the recent Manifesto of Omnipoetics, set forth by Jerome Rothenberg and Javier Taboada in their greatr anthology The Serpent & the Fire (2025):


Omnipoetics as a rejection of the idea of a canon or of any state of mind or spirit that defines poetry as a hierarchy of high & low forms, separating verse & prose, sound & image, written & oral, voice & gesture, poetry & philosophy, etc., while recognizing individual works of genius in all these categories. [ emphasis added ]

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The Audio Edition

It touched my soul. I like the way she reads the poems as one long whole poem. This is very close to what we had in mind when we selected and arranged the poems. As you well know, we followed the model of traditional Persian music in arranging the poems, and I was rather skeptical whether our method would reveal itself to the readers. Now, with the audio version, I’m pleasantly surprised to see that the effort has paid off.

—Erfan Mojib


-=> Listen to an audio sample here <=~

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Literary Crime ~ Cultural Erasure ~ Islamophobia


Our first mention in media was by way of astute recognition by Amanda Holmes (author of the novel I Know Where I Am When I’m Falling), appearing in her On Poetry column for Washington Independent Review of Books. (September 23). Just prior, she’d read from Daniel Ladinsky’s renditions of Hafez, on her poetry podcast for American Scholar. A listener wrote a complaint. She did her homework. Responding, she did the right thing. In a subsequent Read Me A Poem podcast, she made a noble retraction ~ clarifying that the poetry which hundreds of thousands of English-speakers consider as being Hafez are what one might say “channeled” by Daniel Ladinsky. ( To dot an “i,” we note, for the Department of Crazy Twisted Karma, that had his works not sold so well, we’d never have been asked to contribute Hafez to The Little Book series. ) Ivan M Grainger touches upon this phenomenon too, in his excerpt for Poetry Chaikana. For more, please see Omid Safi’s diplomatic take-down, Fake Hafez : How a Supreme Persian Poet of Love Was Erased, (Islamic Horizons, September/October 2020). A broader exploration of Islamophobia in literary translation from Persian is The Erasure of Islam from the Poetry of Rumi by Rozina Ali (The New Yorker, 1:5:17).

Meanwhile, be aware of the circulation of Fake Hafez.


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*****
The Launch Reading

I think when a poem travels to a new language it has to survive a different set of rules. I don’t think your reading was bombastic or anything like that, but it was very different from what I had in mind, particularly because of the nature of the drums, which tend to have an epic rather than a romantic/gloomy aura. Hafiz poetry is usually sung with a gentle piece of music played by a flute, setar, or kamanche in the background. I’m not saying we have to stick to this Persian tradition, but you might want to listen to a few examples to get some ideas.

—Erfan Mojib

Subsequent solo readings are linked, above. We have yet to team up with Persian musicians …


Ordering

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