La Fete - from the "Voices and Visions" Fort Mason Printmakers portfolio

Touradj Ebrahimi

From the portfolio of 22 etchings by 22 artists, titled "Voice and Visions: A Book of Poems and Etchings." Printed by the Fort Mason Printmakers in San Francisco under the direction of Eleanor Rappe, each work was inspired by a poem of the artist's choice, corresponding to their assigned category: Part I, Of Love and Loss; Part II, Upon the Earth; Part III, Under the Heavens; Part IV, Journeys of the Mind; and Part V, Metamorphoses.

This print is from the fifth category: Metamorphoses. Its corresponding poem was "Unsaid" by Nader Naderpur:

There is a poem in the my heart. / a poem of no words, no lament, no desire / a poem of fire / a poem of sparks inflaming me / a poem of rancour, uproar, and revenge / a poem foreign to other ears / a poem uncontained by any name. / There is a poem in my heart / a poem I love and cannot compose / a poem I want and want not to write / a poem like a glance fastened to no form / a poem like silence left upon the lip / a poem that is the love of life and fear of death / a poem that wails and cries and roars / a poem tall and haughty as pride / a poem of fire. / There is a poem in my heart / a poem I love and cannot compose / a poem of what is... / a poem of what was...