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Esmail Khoi: The Poet as Observer and Creative Explorer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Erik Nakjavani
Erik Nakjavani*
Affiliation:
Emeritus of Humanities at the University of Pittsburgh
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Abstract

This article focuses on how Esmail Khoi poetically inhabits the world of his poetry as an observer and visionary explorer. Its aim is to make manifest how he engages his readers in reciprocal poetic dialogues to communicate his unique vision of the lived world. The dialogic function of his poetry is then examined as the ground of emergence of an experiential poetic mode of knowledge of the human condition. The article also considers Khoi's poetry as work done in the fields of language, alchemically transmuting everyday language of communication into poetic discourse. Finally, an analysis of his poem “To the Aged Mulberry Branch” explicates how Khoi can create a world of imagination whole and entire unto itself by his minimalist approach to poetry.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 2011 , pp. 77 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 The International Society for Iranian Studies

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Professor Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, Director of the Roshan Institute Center for Persian Studies at the University of Maryland, who invited me to present a shorter version of this article at “Esmail Khoi: A Retrospective,” held on 21 December 2008 at the University of Maryland, College Park.

References

1 Khoi, Esmail, “Words,” in Voice of Exile (Cumming, GA, 2002), 69Google Scholar.

2 Khoi, Esmail, Outlandia: Songs of Exile, trans. Ahmad, Karimi-Hakkak and Beard, Michael C., intro. Nakjavani, Erik (Vancouver, 1999), 41–42Google Scholar.

3 For a more extensive treatment of the application of phenomenological method to literature, which I have followed, please see Paul, Ricoeur's Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Texas, 1976)Google Scholar, and my interview with him “Phenomenology and Theory of Literature: An Interview with Paul Ricoeur,” Modern Language Notes (Comparative Literature), 96, no. 5 (1981): 1084–1090.

4 Corbin, Henry, The Voyage and the Messanger: Iranian Philosophy, trans. Rewe, Joseph (Berkeley, CA, 1990, 102Google Scholar; Goodman, Nelson, Ways of Worldmaking (Indianapolis, IN, 1978), 102–106Google Scholar.

5 Rainer Maria, Rilke, “Entrance”, in The Book of Images, trans. Snow, Edward (New York, 1991), 5Google Scholar.

6 Khoi, Voice of Exile, 18.

7 Khoi, Voice of Exile, 15.

8 Friedrich, Hölderlin, Selected Verse, trans. Hamburger, Michael (London, 1961), 35Google Scholar.

9 Khoi, Esmail, “Image of Kindness” [Tandis-e mehrabāni], in Belonging: New Poetry by Iranians around the World, ed. and trans. Talebi, Niloufar (Berkeley, CA, 2008), 54–55Google Scholar.

10 Khoi, , “To the Aged Mulberry Branch,” in Belonging: New Poetry by Iranians around the World, 48, 49Google Scholar.

11 Chevalier, Jean and Gheebrant, Alain, The Dictionary of Symbols, trans. John Buchanan, Brown (Cambridge, MA, 1994), 686Google Scholar.

12 Ciment, Michel, Abbas Kiarostami: photographies, photographs, fotografie… (Paris, 1999)Google Scholar.

13 (Eugène) Guillevic, , The Sea and Other Poems, trans. Terry, Patricia (Boston, MA, 2007), 283Google Scholar.