Bard Translation and Translatability Initiative and Middle Eastern Studies Program Present

Hafiz of Shiraz and the Latency of Eternity

Hafiz of Shiraz (1325–1392), Iran’s favorite poet and the most influential writer to ever take up a pen, in addition to being a great romantic poet is also a poet of nature.  As such, true to his appellation “the tongue of the hidden mysteries,” his poetry is structured on the laws of nature—that is on the laws of physics. The presentation of physics in his poetry is in keeping both with the theories of relativity and quantum physics. Additionally, his poetry is a fascinating account of the sojourn of the soul as it travels from the mortality of separation to the immortality of union with the source of all existence—infinite, eternal, and limitlessly creative.  

Peter Booth ('74) is a distinguished translator and interpreter of Hafiz of Shiraz. As a pre-college teen, he studied Sanskrit at Georgetown University,  then English Literature at Bard, Persian Literature in graduate school at Harvard, and finally under a scholarship from the Shah of Iran, at Ferdowsi University in Mashhad, Iran. Peter also studied physics at Georgetown University.  He is the co-author of a number of books on Hafiz, including Dante/Hafiz, and The Illuminated Hafiz, with Robert Bly et al. He has translated 512 poems of Hafiz and is preparing the volume of his collected poetry for publication. Peter lives in Meherabad, India where he conducts poetry seminars. Over a period of forty-five years, using recycled waste water, Peter has transformed a treeless desert on India’s Deccan Plateau into a four-hundred acre gardened forest. 

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For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].

Time: 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4

Location: Olin Humanities, Room 102

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