Poetry stands as the greatest cultural contribution of the Persianate World over the past millennium. From Anatolia to the Indus Valley, and from the Bay of Bengal to Transoxiana, Caucasus, and the Persian Gulf, countless brilliant minds have chosen Persian poetry to express their deepest thoughts and insights, achieving immortality through their words.
To convey the intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and literary legacy of these poets to contemporary readers, I have curated 25 universal categories. Each category features a selection of one hundred masterful verses from the Persian poetic tradition, meticulously chosen to showcase the most elegant and thought-provoking insights on each theme.
These themes include love, light, life, death, earth, sky, friend, wine, body, soul, joy, color, and a dozen more. Each category is enriched with a specific piece of art or architecture that visually represents the chosen theme; for instance, carpets symbolize earth, stained glass embodies light, and tile works reflect colors. Thus, every selected verse is accompanied by an image of corresponding art or architecture, offering a panoramic view of a millennium-long era of Persian art and poetry.
Each of the 2,500 verses across these 25 thematic volumes is presented in artful, yet legible Nastaliq calligraphy, accompanied by its transliteration and English poetic translation. This comprehensive presentation aims to provide readers with a unique and immersive experience of a milenium-long Persianate art and poetry.