Poetry is the key which unlocks the gates of hope, healing and wisdom
Writing and Reciting by Heart:
Iranian American Poet, novelist, and editor Kaveh Akbar, now in his mid- 30s, delivers the 2025 Blaney Lecture on 'poetry and spirituality'
Kaveh Akbar, Illustration by Adham Shahin/via In These Times
‘This is how I felt, when I watched the video of Kaveh’s lecture: To my mind, Kaveh walks the path (ancient and current) at crossroads of faiths, cultures, civilisations, and spiritual traditions. His poems, his sensitivity to words and the manner in which he expresses himself comes from heart and lands into your heart. He takes you to a journey of self-discovery, soothing and healing. He brings the best of Persia, the US and other cultures and civilisations, languages, as well as spiritual traditions together, guiding us to a better understanding and appreciation of who we are and what is our purpose in this journey we call life.’- Kamran Mofid
On May 29, 2025, acclaimed Iranian American poet Kaveh Akbar delivered the 2025 Blaney Lecture on ‘Poetry and Spirituality’: "Interesting poetry awakens us, asks us to slow down our metabolization of language, to become aware of its materiality, how it enters into us. Sacred poetry, from antiquity to the present, teaches us to be comfortable sitting in mystery without trying to resolve it, to be skeptical of unqualified certitudes. In discussing poems across the centuries—from “Hymn to Inanna” to Szymborska—Akbar reminds us that language has history, density, complexity. Such poetry, Akbar says, becomes a potent antidote against an empire that would use “the raw overwhelm of meaningless language” to cudgel us into inaction."- More on the lecture and Kaveh Akbar later.
First, I wish to briefly explain how I got to know about this lecture and Kaveh, neither of which I knew anything about before.
Angels in our life...Our Friends
“Friendship dances around the world announcing to all of us that we must wake up to blessedness.”
For the photo credit and much more see: World in Chaos and Despair: The Healing Power of Friendship
For me, one of the main paths to true happiness and joy is to have great friends, to be able to mentor them, to observe them and learn from them, to share stories with them, to be stretched and challenged by them, and above all, through them to reach out towards the ultimate friend, the unconditional one, when and where, healing and the truest life begins.
The world of mystical awareness is awesome indeed, when a human being can become a field of love, compassion, generosity, playfulness and hope. A true friend and a great friendship is the path to this mystical awareness, discovery and journey.
In this journey we call life, I, like any other traveller, have had my share of ups and downs. On the upside, one of my blessed gifts has been to get to know some wonderful friends across the world, all my sources of inspiration and guidance.
One of those wonderful friends is Dr. Michael Britton, a wonderful man, kind and caring, a wise and inspirational teacher. A couple of years ago I forwarded a Blog that I had recently posted on the GCGI website. The Blog was about a book that I had found to be very interesting and timely: One who dreams is called a prophet by Sultan Somjee. I clicked the send button and off it went to Michael.
Not long after Michael wrote back telling me how much he had enjoyed the piece, and indeed, he had already read the book, and that he knows Somjee well. He then initiated an introduction and put me and Somjee in touch.
Somjee and I started to communicate, getting to know each other better. We discovered that we both love poetry. I shared a couple of related Blogs with him, blogs such as:
Reflecting on Life: My Childhood in Iran where the love of poetry was instilled in me
World in Chaos and Despair: The Healing Power of Poetry
We have carried on our conversation and dialogue. We have become good friends, and the other day Somjee drew my attention to Kaveh Akbar and his Blaney Lecture on ‘Poetry and Spirituality’, hence this Blog today.
This is why I want to invite you to watch the video of the lecture and get to know Kaveh. You will not be disappointed. You will be energised, soothed, nurtured and feel comforted, in what I call a beautiful healing journey.
Now let us see and hear Kaveh:
I began to watch it. I could not stop. Then, after a short break, thinking and reflecting on what I had just watched and heard, I went back and turned the video on again. I watched it and it touched my heart. Like Kaveh, I, too, had goosebumps listening to him.
It nourished my soul. It was full of deep wisdom and insight. I very much enjoyed the way Kaveh related these poems to the current global conditions, our lives and our journeys, struggles, ups and downs, pains, and healing. It was simply a pleasure and delight to watch and hear Kaveh: Watch the Video of Kaveh Akbar delivering his lecture on Poetry and Spirituality HERE
What Can Ancient Spiritual Poetry Teach Us about Living? By Kaveh Akbar
Photo credit: Harvard Divinity Bulletin
‘In 1989 I was born in the middle of a snowstorm in Tehran; my first two languages were Farsi and English, in that order. My first full sentence was “Gimmee ob,” ob being the Farsi word for water. I have always been a bit thirsty. I have always been a bit enamored of the materiality of language, trying to snap together parts that don’t exactly click but might, if coaxed just right, like sticking a Mega Blok onto a Lego…’- Continue to read
A Must-read book by Kaveh Akbar to further our understanding of ‘What Can Ancient Spiritual Poetry Teach Us about Living?’
‘Poets have always looked to the skies for inspiration and have written as a way of getting closer to the power and beauty they sense in nature, in each other and in the cosmos. This anthology is a holistic and global survey to a lyric conversation orbiting the divine that has been ongoing for millennia.
Beginning with the earliest attributable author in all of human literature, the twenty-third century BC Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna, and taking in a constellation of voices - from King David to Lao Tzu, from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the Malian Epic of Sundiata - this anthology presents a number of canonical voices like Blake, Dickinson and Tagore, alongside lesser-anthologized diverse voices going up to the present day, that showcase the breathtaking multiplicity of ways humanity has responded to the divine across place and time.
These poets' voices commune between millenia, offering readers a chance to experience for themselves the vast and powerful interconnectedness of these incantations orbiting the most elemental of all subjects - our spirit.’
Buy the book HERE
In conclusion, thank you Michael for putting me in touch with Somjee.
Thank you Somjee for introducing Akbar to me.
Thank you Akbar for your heart touching words and poems.
And thank you, you the readers of my Blogs. I Love you all.
Illustration by Adham Shahin/via In These Times