The Sama: Hearing with the Heart
The Sufi ritual of sama began in the 13th century with the mystic poet Jalaleddin Muhammad Rumi. The legend goes that he was walking toward […]
Genre
Five Poems by Bijan Elahi
Bijan Elahi (July 7, 1945 – Dec 1, 2010) was a modernist poet and a prolific translator of T.S. Eliot, Arthur Rimbaud, Henri Michaux, Friedrich […]
Three Poems by Ali-Akbar Sadeghi
A graduate of the College of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, Ali-Akbar Sadeghi is one of the most prolific and successful Iranian painters and artists. […]
Three Poems by Hossein Nazari
i carry
dismembered memories
in my suitcase
fractured dreams
in my skull
Postscript to Silence
“This little space gradually grew large and larger until it occupied his whole heart and mind. An all-inclusive mass that, in spite of all his expertise and experience, was unnameable for him.”
The Gawky Schizoid
A poem by Mona Jafari Scrambling in drying concrete as her bed every night, Pray tell, what comes of a face that can never see […]
Angah: A Magazine for Archiving Public Spheres of Culture, Art in Iran
The following conversation is made between Parsagon’s editor-at-large Azadeh Ghahvie and Arash Tanhai, graphic designer and founder of Angah – an archival-conceptual magazine that documents aspects […]
Will Stand, We
“The sound of falling dices disturbs you. Why are they pleased with no game other than backgammon? Why don’t they play chess? Because you should shut your mouth up when playing chess, should think twice, should plan. You should make progress on different fronts to blindside your opponent. So that if he moves his knight, you can take his bishop, and if he moves his queen, you can take his rock, and so on until you gradually reach your goal. On the backgammon, however, all you can do is throw dices and boast and dawdle until your opponent is distracted and cannot decide, cannot risk it.”
As Though Someone Is Laughing at Little Girls!
Written by Mehrnaz Shirazi-Adl From the short story collection That’s Perhaps the Only Way (شاید تنها راهش همین باشد) – Qatreh Publications, 2016. Translated from the Persian […]
Fog
“This is life: constant surprise. I no longer trust any of them. It’s as if people were made to disappoint each other. Because they turn to something else right when you need them – to what has nothing to do with your thought. That’s life. It’s all my life. When you trust people, you can not get anything except trust. The role of people is to spend time. This is the most essential and difficult task of every human being: filling the spots of time.”