This bilingual edition of recent verse by the celebrated Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami (award-winning director of such films as Close-Up and Taste of Cherry) includes English translations of more than two hundred crystalline, haiku-like poems, together with their Persian originals. The translators, noted Persian literature scholars Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak and Michael Beard, contribute an illuminating introduction to Kiarostami's poetic enterprise, examining its relationship to his unique cinematic corpus and to the traditions of classic and contemporary Persian poetry. Of interest to enthusiasts of cinema and literature alike, Walking with the Wind--the second volume in Harvard Film Archive's series "Voices and Visions in Film"--sheds light on a contemporary master who transforms simple fragments of reality into evocative narrative landscapes.

Abbas Kiarostami is a filmmaker.

Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak is Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, University of Washington.

Michael Beard is Professor of English, University of North Dakota.