A New Divan

Now reaching its 200th anniversary, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s sequence of poems, the West-Eastern Divan serves as the inspiration for this new collection poems by twenty-four international poets. Goethe’s original work shows the poet looking east from his homeland of Germany to build a collection of writing inspired by the poetic traditions of Persia. In twelve books, Goethe writes on a variety of great poetic themes, including love, humor, parables, and paradise. Over the years since its original publication in 1819, the Divan has served as inspiration for a variety of literary, theoretical, and musical responses. A New Divan revisits Goethe’s work in a lively celebration of cross-cultural exchange. Works by twelve poets from the East and twelve from the West respond to the themes laid out in Goethe’s Divan and build bridges between cultures, nationalities, and languages. The poets have been paired to write in response to each of the twelve books of the Divan, and here present their multi-lingual works in eleven different languages, each with a poetic interpretation written in English. Three pairs of essays complement and shed further light on the series of poetic exchanges. These writings mirror the original notes that Goethe included in his West-Eastern Divan.
​
Reaching through time, language, and poetic history, A New Divan offers a lyrical conversation and opens paths of connection across cultures.

Barbara Schwepcke is the founder of Gingko and the chair of its board of trustees. Bill Swainson is a freelance editor and literary consultant.