Dick Davis is a British poet, and translator. He is professor emeritus of Persian at Ohio State University. He has written scholarly works on both English and Persian literature, as well as eight volumes of his own poetry, and been the recipient of numerous academic and literary awards, including both the Ingram Merrill and Heinemann awards for poetry. His publications include volumes of poetry and verse translation chosen as books of the year by The Sunday Times (UK) in 1989; The Daily Telegraph (UK) in 1989; The Economist (UK) in 2002; The Washington Post in 2010, and The Times Literary Supplement (UK) in 2013. He has published numerous book-length verse translations from medieval Persian, most recently, Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz (2012). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has been called, by The Times Literary Supplement, “our finest translator from Persian”.
Lifting her arms to soap her hair
Her pretty breasts respond – and there
The movement of that buoyant pair
Is like a spell to make me swear
...
The first night that I slept with you
And slept, I dreamt (these lines are true):
Now newly married we had moved
Into an unkempt house we loved –
...
For Joshua Mehigan
These are the dawn thoughts of an atheist
Vaguely embarrassed by what looks like grace:
...
Each summer, working there, I’d set off for
The fabled cities – Esfahan, Kashan,
Or Ecbatana, where Hephaestion died,
The poets’ towns – Shiraz and Nayshapour,
...
Who thickens from the shadows as you die?
Who silences your comprehending cry?
Emblem of all you lost and now inherit,
...