Persian Poetic Renaissance: Lyrics by Fifteen Sufi Poets in "Verse Interviews"

For 600 years, roughly 1050 to 1650, Persian-writing poets created a renaissance of lyrical expression, a treasury of entertaining and thoughtful wordsong. I've selected 15 poets who amaze me from Joseph von Hammer's encyclopedic German anthology of 1818. I translate 7 poems by each poet, and in my "interviews" I reply to every poem in my own original verse, adding further context in a little "blogatelle." Each poet is a friend to me as well as a mentor. What unites them is an exploratory tradition. All are influenced by Sufi mysticism, an outlook based in Islam but trying to transcend it and all other scriptural religions. Love is the predominant focus: love for God and creation, for heaven and earth, for men and women, for wine and travel, and always for vigorous, mellifluent verse.