I Love You: A Thousand Years of ‘I Love You’ in Iranian Poetry

The book “I Love You: A Thousand Years of ‘I Love You’ in Iranian Poetry” is a collection of 131 love poems by 53 Iranian poets, spanning from the 3rd century of the Solar Hijri calendar to the present day. The theme of all these poems is the expression of love. The selection of poems is based on innovation in language and avoiding repetitive expressions of “I love you.” Each letter of the words “I love you” is a door to paradise that opens one after another, giving room to wander—every night before sleep and every morning upon waking. The book was compiled by Yarta Yaran.

“I love you” is God’s word within humans—a short phrase carrying an endless story, because its beginning lies in timelessness: a time when God existed but had not yet created the world to reveal His divinity in the one He loves. The Creator creates in order to love more and to be loved more; He creates because He loves, even if the beloved will appear a thousand years later. “I love you” is the cause of continuity in creation, and continuity is the secret of constant creation.

“I love you” is the identity of love, just as language is the identity of humans. Humanity is hidden in language, and love is hidden in “I love you.” Poetry is the pinnacle of language, its magic is the pinnacle of linguistic magic; poets are the sorcerers of this magic, the miracle-workers who preserve the identity of each nation through the edifices they create with the power of words.

The book I Love You is a collection of the most beautiful expressions of “I love you” by Iranian poets, in forms such as ghazal, qasida, qita‘, musammat, masnavi, ruba‘i, and do-bayti, in various classical and pre-Islamic meters—including the ancient Khosravani style, a three-line form with rhyme and meter in the first and third lines, exemplified by the last poet featured in this collection.