The Green Sea of Heaven: Eighty Ghazals from the Díwān of Háfiz
An interview with Authors, Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr. and Iraj Anvar

The International of Association of Sufism’s Insight Newsletter editorial team, Ashley Werner and Victor Sinow, conducted the following interview, which has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Insight: The 30th anniversary edition of your book, The Green Sea of Heaven: Eighty Ghazals from the Díwān of Háfiz, features the beautiful visual presentation of the Persian and English text of Háfiz’s poetry side by side.

Iraj: I thought that having the Persian and English text side by side would be best for students of Persian who are interested in poetry, so they can compare and understand our translation choices. Also, it has been 45 years since the Iranian Revolution. Many Iranians around the world don’t have the background and the knowledge of the language to understand Háfiz in Persian, though he is so popular among Iranians.

Insight: Could you tell us how your partnership works and how you work together?

Iraj: When we started, Liz had 50 ghazals that were published in literary magazines over the years. A publisher wanted to publish them in a book, but he wanted her to revise them and work with an Iranian scholar. We worked on every single ghazal line by line, word by word. We spent months and months working on these ghazals.

It was actually delightful for me to work on the ghazals. Slowly but surely, I changed my opinion that it would be futile to try to translate Háfiz into English, because there are so many layers to Háfiz. The translation also depends on how the translator understands the poem. The version of Háfiz that you have now in your hand is the version as Liz and I understand it.

Liz: Just as we have our Háfiz that we were trying to bring into English, as the scholar Daryush Shayegan says, Háfiz speaks to every heart and every person has their own relation with Háfiz.

Insight: What makes Háfiz’s poetry special?

Iraj: The first thing that comes to mind is the use of the Persian language. It is unbelievable. He talks about everything in life. And he’s so down to Earth. He lived in the 14th century, and if you read his work, it’s so contemporary. It seems that the time does not wear out his words. As time goes by, the luster of his words becomes more shining. The more you read Háfiz, the more you understand the subtleties of the concepts and the language he uses. Somehow in my mind, it is connected to eternity. It’s an infinite ocean that you can swim in for centuries, for millennia, and not reach the shore.

Liz: It’s like a moment of lyrical space-time. It is suspended, and it is universal. The language is crystal clear. It moves through space-time like a continuum in a way that makes it timeless. Some of Shakespeare is like that, but Shakespeare is, I think, not quite dealing with the same level of spirituality that underlies the Islamic spirituality of Háfiz’s time.

Insight: What lessons do you think Háfiz offers for understanding our own humanity and capacity for spiritual knowledge?

Liz: What I take away from Háfiz is in two different learnings. One is as a poet, what I learned from a fellow literary artist. I wanted to learn how to write love poems – to God or to a person or to Being. What I learned about writing and about what a poet can do is extraordinary in terms of craft and form, in terms of speaker and addressee. As a seeker and as a human being, it is Háfiz’s capaciousness. He is so inclusive. Everyone from the beggar to the angels in heaven are part of his universe.

That’s why I think the Shayegan essay in the book’s afterword is so interesting. He talks about this moment in spiritual time from before creation to beyond infinity. Háfiz claims that world. Everything that falls in there, falls under His gaze. It is all part of this Divine continuum, in which everything mirrors each other.

Iraj: I can just emphasize that before reading these translations, whoever has the book should read the introductory essay. It’s unbelievably illuminating. As for the greatness of Háfiz and the spiritual benefit he can he can bring to humanity, it’s beyond me to explain that. I really feel like a speck of dust. Háfiz is so huge, such an incredible God-like image for me, that whatever I say, I just diminish him.

Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr. is an author, poet, and attorney based in New York City. Iraj Anvar is an actor, singer, stage and film director, writer translator, and educator.
The Green Sea of Heaven: 80 Ghazals from the Diwān of Háfiz is available to order through Monkfish, Bookshop.org, and Amazon.