Poetry
دیوان
Not translated into English
Aref Qazvini · 1924
Synopsis
The song lyrics and poems of a man who sang of the Constitutional Revolution. They include the tulip that grows from the blood of the young men of the homeland, the lament of the captive bird calling its compatriots to freedom, the mourning for Colonel Pesyan killed in Khorasan, a song for the young girl married in secret, and ghazals in which the learned language rubs shoulders with street slang.
Context
The divan appeared in Berlin in 1303 in the Persian calendar, that is, 1924, among the Persians of Germany; the edition by Abdolrahman Sayf Azad, reprinted several times in Tehran, adds to it the author's autobiography and letters. The work comprises about a hundred and fifty pieces, ghazals, songs, fragments and masnavis. The author composed his songs as events unfolded and sang them himself before vast crowds, and it is in them that one follows the great moments after 1906. Bahar called him “the poet of the common people”.
Who it is for
Songs and ghazals in Persian, all of them short. It helps to know that these texts were made to be sung, and that several read poorly without the tune that carries them, still performed today.
Prizes and reception
He is credited with bringing politics into Persian song, and its author is called the national poet of Iran.