Keshavarz, F: Recite in the Name of the Red Rose

Recite in the Name of the Red Rose introduces Western readers toconstructions of the sacred in twentieth-century Iranian poetry. Siftingthrough the lives and writings of modern and classical poets, FatemehKeshavarz provides a systematic examination of the array of religiousimpulses in recent Persian verse. Viewing poetry as the site of theemergence of the self and the sacred, she confirms that sanctificationis not static in its forms but continuously in flux and that the poeticmodes used to articulate the sanctified are equally fluid. Keshevarzbegins by introducing the core concepts that define and detach religionand secularity in contemporary Iranian society.