Lia Purpura, Parasol Mushroom (detail), featured in AGNI 102
War Tableau #2
Of the house
only the gabled roof remained
over the column of memory—
like an umbrella
opened for no reason
Of the dragonfly
its antennae
in search of a sound
The whirlwind of dust and smoke
was a giant
freed from a narrow-necked jar
A piece of wood in the rough water
could have been a child’s skiff
and the flying papers
his slender planes
On this canvas
the space for a signature was blank
Fereshteh Sari
Fereshteh Sari is the author of eight books of poetry, six novels, two story collections, a children’s book, and a number of translations, including the selected poems of Boris Pasternak. During the Iran–Iraq War, Sari was one of the few poets to use simple observation and strong imagery to depict war’s devastating impact on ordinary citizens. Her poetry collection Days and Letters won the Parvin Etesami Prize in 2004. She has also received a fellowship from the International Parliament of Writers, a Hellman/Hammett Human Rights Watch grant, and the Erich Maria Remarque Prize. In 2009, Sari was given the Khorshid Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes established Iranian women writers. (updated 10/2025)
Kaveh Bassiri
Kaveh Bassiri is an Iranian-American writer and translator. The recipient of a Tulsa Artist Fellowship and a translation fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, he is the author of 99 Names of Exile (Newfound, 2019), winner of the Anzaldúa Poetry Prize, and Elementary English (Newfound, 2020), winner of the Rick Campbell Chapbook Prize. His translations have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, AGNI, Guernica, The Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere, and his poetry was chosen for The Best American Poetry 2020 and Best New Poets 2020. (updated 10/2025)