1.FORMULATION OF THE PROBLEMATIC AND DEFINING THE NEED FOR THIS STUDY

William Blake (1757-1827) gave rise to the notion of ‘free-verse’ in twentieth century and he

acknowledges that poets have frequently chafed at the formal demands they inherit, which is why

Shakespeare in his plays, and Milton in his epic poetry, ‘derived’ their verse from rhyme and wrote

blank verse (in Wainwright, 2004:94).

Moreover, Wainwright (ibid: 95) states that ‘there is a powerful part of ‘free-verse’ which appeals to

boarder hopes of liberation’. As a result, the need of liberation for poetry style namely free-verse in

contemporary English poetry, on one hand and the lack of framework and defined genre in

contemporary English poetry, on the other hand, leads me to attempt to introduce the defined style of

New Wave which already exists in the SL (Farsi/ Persian) and to make a small contribution to its

development for the sake of liberation in poetry. As ‘Poetry Fetter’d Fetters the Human Race’(ibid).

2. FORMULATION OF THE THESIS

The well-known Persian style of New Wave poetry which is the literally translation of its term نو ,موج

can be established in contemporary English poetry to cover free-verse style and develop its futures in a

specific genre under the name of New Wave Poetry. This will offer the liberation and truth in poetry in

which Blake views the true voice as the original voice of humankind comes from divine inspiration and

con not be confined (ibid).

Furthermore, there are specific aims through my whole dissertation that I would like to achieve and I

questioning them as follow: What variables create different styles of poetry? What impact do cultures

have on shaping these styles? How these variables and cultural matters transfer in poetry translation?

Could New Wave poetry define itself in contemporary English poetry? Could New Wave poetry

establish the liberation sought by contemporary English poets?

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3.METHODOLOGY & REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ON THIS FIELD

The methodology employed for developing this dissertation includes two steps. First, I will translate the

selected poems of New Wave genre from various poets into English and assess each translated poem on

the basis of New Wave characteristics. Second, I will evaluate the impacts of the introduced style on

experts in TL (English) through audiovisual interviews from Ver Poet International Poetry Club in

London.

The main theory implicated in poetry translation (chapter 6) is a German method of translation,

Umdichtung (a poem remodelled on another) that first pointed out and distinguished by Borges in his

famous 1967 Harvard lectures. I will apply this method through rendering of all poems considering the

point of view Erna Bennett drew out that the translator responds to his own poetic instincts. He/She

chooses which of the poem's many threads he/she will seek to interpret that here is the characteristics of

New Wave which I’m going to discuss these features in detail in next chapter. Also, as far as this style

is contemporary, the audiences are to be considered as young adults and contemporary poets. So, having

the skopos on mind, it is a fresh concept through modernism and transmitting the elements for now on

and future.

Moreover, in rendering New Wave poetry, it is possible to keep the ‘form and content’ through

remodelling the poem and this is because of the characteristics of this genre; however, there is not only

differences of linguistic affiliation but also highly diverse cultures in the terms of ‘relatedness’ between

English and Farsi/Persian(Nida in Venuti, 2000).The rest of aspects and objectives of whole dissertation

(i.e. cultural issues, ideological and political points of view and constraints) will be accomplished

through incorporating Lefevere and Venuti points of view (Venuti, 2000; ibid, 1995).

To get through these patterns, in next two chapters, I suggest that insights to both Farsi and English

contemporary poetry will provide a better background for the new notion of ‘New Wave’.

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Please refer to the Appendix for each chapter in order to observe the process of actual dissertation

which contains the extracts of each.

4. ANALYSIS OF NEW WAVE STYLE IN CONTEMPORARY PERSIAN POETRY AND ITS

CHARACTRERISTICS

4-1.Introducing the founder of this style and his poetry collection

Ahmad Reza Ahmadi; The founder and Propagator of the New Wave

“Ahmad Reza Ahmadi” was born on May 19th 1940 in Kerman city – Iran. He moved to Tehran in 1947

and continued his studies in Dar-Al-Fonun high school. Ahmadi published his first of poems titled “The

Scheme” (Tarh) in 1962. In those years (1961-62) “a number of young poets created a style regardless

of experiences and achievements of classical poetry and Nima poetry basics, called the New Wave”1.

Experts of the contemporary school of poetry believe that the New Wave is known by The Scheme.

Ahmad Reza Ahmadi’s poetry was inspired by Houshang Irani’s poems at that time, and one may dare

to say that Ahmadi utilized Iranian poems to create the New Wave. Ahmad Reza Ahmadi is the most

prominent and well-known New Wave poet, or in other words, the New Wave is always the reminder of

his poetry and name.

Ahmad Reza Ahmadi is the real representative and founder of this school since 1961 by publishing

poetry series such as “The Scheme” (1962), “The Glass Newspaper” (1964), “The Good Time of

disasters” (1968), “I Just a Cried a White Horse” (1971), “The Rhyme is Gone with the Wind” (1986),

“There Was a Stain of Life on the Wall” (1989), “I Confide the Ruins of Heart to the Wind” (1990),

“One Thousand Stairs Remaining to the Sea” ( 1985), “All Those Years” (1988), “One Thousand

Acacia Were Nothing in Your Eyes” (1996),…. As mentioned earlier, “The New Wave” began with

“The Scheme”, but consolidated as a professional movement of contemporary poetry by “The Glass

Newspaper”(Shadkhast, 2006: 311- 314).

1 Ali Babachahi, “Poetry Movements Since 1960s Until Today”, (Adineh, 1988: 32).

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4-2.Introducing Persian poets of this field

Ahmadi’s poetry was welcomed massively at that time and many poets followed him. Poets like:

Mohammad Reza Aslani, Shahrokh Safayi, Sharam Sharokhtash, Fereydoon Mo’azzezi Moqaddam, M.

Noufel, Mohammad Reza Fashahi, Azim Khalili, Majid Nafisi, Tirdad Nosrati, Hossein Mahdavi (M.

Mo’ayyed), Javad Mojabi, Yadollah Rouyayi, Bijan Elahi, Bahram Ardebili, Hossein Rasayel, Houtan

Nejat, Hamid Erfan and Parviz Eslampour (the poet of new wave and content poetry). Isma’eel Nouri

Ala believes that except Hossein Mahdavi, Javad Mojabi and Rouyayi who were among rhythmist poets

of the new wave, the rest were writing poems in prose . From among the contemporary poets, Bijan

Najdi and Ali Ghelich Khani can be considered as new wave poets (ibid:314).

4-3.Introducing the framework and its characteristics

Rhythm and New Wave

Ahmad Reza Ahmadi turns to non-rhythmic poetry which corresponded with free verse. His poems are

mostly lacking prosodic, even inner harmony. Putting the rhythm aside made many young poets

welcome the new wave, and the magazines of that time got stuffed with poems of new wave poets.

Shams Langroudi defines “New Wave” features in his “Analytical History of the modern Poetry” as

follows:

1.Separation of practical and daily duty of the words and language from the words and language

themselves.

2.Creation of different occasion and relations between words, pictures and objects.

3.Creation of a new and bizarre intellectual atmosphere, not by description and delineation, but by

making an atmosphere, not line by line, but in wholeness of a poem” (ibid: 313-315).

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4-4.Including different points of view of contemporary Persian poets on New Wave poetry

Mehrdad Samadi, who was among the most tenacious defendants of the new wave in those years, writes

about Ahmadi: “Whatever the form is, Ahmadi is extremely skillful in starting his poems and ending

them, and this is very important in his notional poems without a logical flow. Endings in poems with a

possible conclusion are mostly abstract and categorical, and sometimes visual”.

That is to say, Ahmad Reza Ahmadi is not bound to observe a specific format in poetry and in his

opinion, the scheme and the story are of more importance than its format. Ahmadi’s poems format are

stirred with notion and thought, and he uses different pictures merely to clarify his notions. Unlike

content poetry ( حجم which rejects simile and metaphor completely, the new wave uses them in a (شعر

proper way. In addition, utilization of numerous pictures survives the new wave poetry from getting

stuck in prose trap. In the new wave, instruments are put aside, and “the new wave poet pays more

attention to the relation of instruments than instruments themselves… for a new wave poet everything is

considered as being an instrument”.

many poets, critiques and devotees of modern poetry opposed the new wave. Although Forough

Farrokhzad liked Ahmad Reza Ahmadi’s poems, but she suggested him to observe rhythm in his poetry.

She writes in a letter to Ahmad Reza Ahmadi:

“Dear Ahmad Reza! Don’t forget the “Rhythm”, don’t forget it multiplied by a thousand, pay attention

to this. I swear to God that I wish your talent and delicacy and taste to be flown in a reliable and strong

path. Your words are worth being memorized. I believe that you haven’t found your form yet, and your

style is not a right one. What you have chosen is not called freedom. It’s a kind of indifference and lax.

It’s just like the condition where someone violates all moralities, saying I’m tired of all these stuff, and

lives in an indifferent way. While destruction, if doesn’t lead to a new building, is not an adorable deed

in itself. Look and live as much as you can, and understand the rhythm of this life. If you even look at

the leaves of a tree, you’ll find out that they tremble in the wind, with an orderly rhythm. Same are a

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bird’s wings. When they soar, they move their wings so fast without stopping, and when they reach the

peak, they keep them in a direct axis. Same is the flow of water…”.

Ahmad Reza Ahmadi did not pay attention to Forough’s advises, and kept on going on his own way. But

Ahmadi’s poetry was welcomed massively at that time and many poets followed him (ibid:312-314).

5. ANALYSIS OF CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH POETRY

5-1.Introducing various contemporary English poets

This chapter will cover selected contemporary English poets that they have poems in which distinctive

characteristics of New Wave are emerged while there is no actual definition of style in the TL (English).

Poets such as Martyn Crucefix and Gerald England.

As mentioned in previous chapters, on ‘free verse’ we saw how William Blake saw formal verse as a

symptom of imprisonment: ‘Poetry Fettere’d Fetters the Human Race.’ His fellow romantics,

Wordsworth, Colerdige, Keats, Shelley, and in America Emerson, Thoreau and Whiteman, and

indeed the secluded Emily Dickinson, are all absorbed by the aspiration towards freedom’(Wainwright,

2004: 181). The followings are the poets that their potential style of poetry converged with defined

framework of New Wave.

GERALD ENGLAND was born in 1946 the son of a Yorkshire miner. He was educated at the King's

School, Pontefract; Strathclyde University and Sheffield Polytechnic. He worked as an industrial

chemist in the confectionary trade and as a University technician before moving to Oldham to become

an insurance agent/financial advisor. His poetry has appeared in hundreds of magazines around the

world and he has published eleven collections. Of his latest collection "LIMBO TIME", Poetry

Quarterly Review wrote "his work is both personal and accessible and presents an original view of life".

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MARTYN CRUCEFIX works as poet, teacher, reviewer, critic, translator and competition judge. He is

a tutor with the Poetry School in London. He is a founder member of the group ShadoWork,

specializing in performing and writing collaboratively.He was featured in 1988 in a special edition of

Poetry Review, 'New British Poets'.

Martyn won a major Eric Gregory award in 1984 and a Hawthornden Fellowship in 1991. He was

placed second in the 1991 Arvon/Observer International Poetry Competition. He has won several prizes

in the National Poetry Competition as well as the Kent, Cardiff, Lancaster and Leek festival

competitions. He won joint first prize in the Sheffield Thursday Poetry Competition, 1993, with his

poem 'On Whistler Mountain'.

Martyn’s first full collection, Beneath Tremendous Rain (1990), was published by Enitharmon Press.

The Arvon prize-winning poem, At The Mountjoy Hotel, appeared with Enitharmon in Spring 1993. A

second collection, On Whistler Mountain, was published by Sinclair-Stevenson in 1994. His third book

was A Madder Ghost (Enitharmon, 1997), praised by Anne Stevenson: "It is rare these days to find a

book of poems that is so focused, so carefully shaped and so moving".

His most recent collection is An English Nazareth (Enitharmon, 2004) and his new translation of Rilke’s

Duino Elegies was published by Enitharmon in 2006.

5-2.Having an insight on contemporary styles of English poetry

In this chapter, we are going to have a brief insight over contemporary styles of English poetry that

formed through time and to proclaim that what does it look like and what does it desire to be like. As

mentioned earlier, by the advent of free-verse and blank-verse, there has always been a strong desire for

more liberation in poetry. Therefore, ‘the general movement of ‘free-verse’ then is towards a democratic

informality that has a more flexible rhythm and a wider, more colloquial, range of words. Once freed of

measure the line has gone in two main different directions. One has been toward minimalism, reduction,

and the other towards expansiveness, spread’ (Wainwright, 2004:102).

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Meanwhile, Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort founded MPT in 1966 they had two principal ambitions:

to publish poetry that dealt truthfully with the real contemporary world; and to benefit writers and the

reading public in Britain and America by confronting them with good work from abroad. The current

editors of MPT are David and Helen Constantine who continue in that tradition.

5-3.Free-verse and modernism in English Poetry

Some knowledge of Anglo-Saxon fragments… would prevent a man’s sinking into contentment with a

lot of wish-wash that passes for classic or “standard” poetry, wrote Pond in a typically pugnacious

essay. The sentiment that verse must be dragged from ‘contentment’, a lolling posture wafted by the

zephyrs of familiar rhythms, liquid consonants and mild assonance, pervades modernist poetics at this

time. It goes along with disgust with the complacent, platform eloquence, ‘the conventional oompa

oompa’, as one critic called it, of Edwardian public poetry in the years before the first World War.

Pound, who wrote bitterly about the waste and misery of the war, wanted to ‘make it new’, to avoid

being gathered into the ‘standard’ voice of the time. So he sought models not only in Anglo-Saxon but

in Provencal, Italian, Chinese and Japanese poetry. Later in the century some poets- or perhaps more

accurately some critics- came to see the casting-off of any mask as a virtue in itself. For enthusiasts of

what came to be called the ‘confessional’ school of poetry the manner of speaking should be open, easy,

even slangy, and the openness should reveal personal intensity and pain (ibid: 100; ibid: 57).

‘The phrase ‘free verse’ translates the earlier French ‘vers libre’, and French poetry. Most obviously in

the prose poems of Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) and Arthur Rimbaund (1854-91), had been seeking

its own departures from formal verse. Moreover, in 1917, Eliot in his essay ‘Reflections on

Contemporary Poetry’ pointed out that one of the ways which contemporary verse has tried to escape

the rhetorical, the abstract, the moralising, to cover (for that is the purpose) the accents of direct speech,

is to concentrate its attention on trivial or accidental or commonplace objects.’(ibid:100-102).

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5-4.The element of visualization in poetry

In this chapter, I have suggested the semantic area of visualization which converged in New Wave

definition in chapter 4.3.

‘Rhetorical’ poets and ‘makars’ of the traditional ballad who did not seek for novelty and just want to

tell communal story, might be seen as constructors of poetry. It can be said that their method is

mechanical. By contrast, ‘imagination’ suggests a quite different definition of poetry. That poetry is not

as conscious process but as natural surprise and non-rational process of mind. Unbidden associations

and illuminations spring into the poet’s mind and thence on the page. Now if we put together image

and imagination we bring to mind a powerful concept of the nature of poetry.

It is imagination in the sense of the mind’s capacity to form concepts beyond those devised from

external objects. Poetry can do this because its elasticity as a medium, its sensuousness and it seems to

be coming as though from elsewhere: the poet is inspired (ibid: 173-175).Therefore, the visualization of

the semantic area of his/her imagination in the wholeness of a poem.

Next chapter includes selected poems of four New Wave poets to be translated and a brief biography of

each.

6. TRANSLATIN OF SELECTED POEMS OF NEW WAVE GENRE FROM PERSIAN INTO

ENGLISH

6-1.Ahmadreza Ahmadi

According to chapter 4.1, the selected poems for translation are available in the appendix.

6-2.Yadollah Royaee

Yadollah Rouyayi was born in Jafar Abad, Damghan on 6th May 1934. “In his first poetry period,

Rouyayi was influenced by two great classical Iranian poets: Hafez and Nezami Ganjavi; Hafez,

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because of his philosophic thinking, poetic lyrics, mystic view and old wisdom. Nezami because of his

narrations, linguistic works, fantasy and gripe over words and pictures…. Nima is another poet who

influenced Rouyayi. Through these impressions, Rouyayi published his first book of poetry called “On

Empty Roads”.

It should be mentioned that Rouyayi read Nezami’s works upon advises from Nima, and at that time, it

was Nima who left the greatest impression on him. But after a while, rouyayi started having a tendency

towards the new wave movement, and considered among difficult prose poets of the new wave

(Shadkhast, 2006: 325).

The selected poems for translation are available in the appendix.

6-3.Bijan Elahi

Bijan Elahi was a Persian poet and translator born on16 Tir 1324 /7 July1945 and died on

10 Azar 1389/1 december 2010. Bijan Elahi, as a poet of New Wave was influential through his poems

and translations in the literary environment of 1340's/1960's Iran.

Elahi was fluent in a handful of languages and his translations, especially those of Federico Garcia

Lorca, Arthur Rimbaud and Mansur Hallaj are a good example of obsessive endeaver in research and

precision to the scale of rather a re-creation of original writings and creativities.

His famous poetry collection is “Some Poems of Three Yester Eras”/ « دیروزین ش ی دوره سه از عرهایی

».

The selected poems for translation are available in the appendix.

6-4.Bahareh Shirzad

Bahareh Shirzad was born in Tehran, Iran in 1986. She is a New Wave poet and has two poetry

collections, namely “My Little Sun/ من /and “Love Poems of Naked Wires ”خورشیدک

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عور های سیم برای ای .pubished in 2008 and 2011 respectively ”عاشقانه

The selected poems for translation are available in the appendix.

7. EXAMINING THE IMPACTS OF THE INTRODUCED STYLE ON EXPERTS OF THIS FIELD

IN TL THROUGH INTERVIWES

7-1.Ver Poets Club

Since ‘performance poetry’ has become a ‘highly visible and popular part of the contemporary

landscape’, I would like to follow the process by participating in poetry ‘nights’(Wainwright,2004: 30-

31). As a result, I chose Ver Poets club which is an international poetry club and I would like to conduct

this investigation interviewing reliable English contemporary poets. Such as Martyn Crucefix (the

competition judge), Mimi khalvati (the founder of The Poetry School and the adjudicator), John Mole

(president of Ver Poets)

8. CONCLUSION

All and all, this introduction is a part of my dissertation that focused on the problematic of contemporary

English poetry and endeavoured to offer a framework through its methodology. In other words, the

structure of my research will guide me to introduce a genre which attempts to develop contemporary

English poetry. The project’s aim will reach complete realisation through further in depth analysis of the

chosen extracts which will be exhaustively presented into the actual dissertation.

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Bibliography

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Borges, L. (2000) The Craft of Verse, USA: President and Fellows of Harvard College

Famous Poets and Poems (2006) Gerald England, [online], Available:

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/gerald_england/biography [1 Apr 2012].

Lefevere, A. (1993) Translating Literature, New York: The Modern Language Association of America

Poetry Pf (2005) Martyn Crucefix, [online], Available:

http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/martyncrucefixbiog.html [1 Apr 2012].

Shadkhast, M. (2006) A Bright Privacy, Tehran: Ataei

Shirzad, B. (2008) My Little Sun, Tehran: Shani

Shirzad, B. (2011) Love Poems of Naked Wires, Tehran: Kouleh Poshti

Soleimani, F. (2010) Bijan Elahi, [online], Available:

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2012].

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2012].

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Wainwright, J. (2004) Poetry: The Basics, 2nd edition, Oxon: Routledge

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Press

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