Still little known in the West, Persian poetry offers extraordinary riches. While celebrating the beauty of the world in poems about love, wine and poetry itself, or telling anecdotes of everyday life, Persian poetry set these themes in the wider religious and philosophical context of Islam. Omar, Rumi, Saadi, Sanai, Attar, Hafez and Jami - the great lyric and didactic poets of medieval Persia - are all represented in this selection of translations spanning almost two hundred and fifty years. n