An Assembly of Moths: Selected Poems of Khalilullah Khalili

Let my heart and soulimplore spring cloudsTo spare the ant hillwhen spring rain beginsThis tiny digging is their entire world,This underground darktheir shining metropolis

 I had been looking for this rare book of translated poems by one of the most important poets of Afghanistan for so long, so I was really excited when I finally found it on Rekhta, a digital library for Middle Eastern literature. I was even more excited when I realized that Whitney Azoy was attached to this project and wrote a lengthy introduction about Khalili's significance. I loved his book on the Afghan sport of Buzkashi which I read earlier this year.
Khalilullah's own son, Masood Khalili, translated the poems by his father together with Azoy, and Sohalia Khalili, Masood's wife, painted the beautiful illustrations to make this book visually impressive as well. It makes for a really cool whole.

Azoy's introduction gives more context to the culture around poetry in Afghanistan and explains the importance and popularity of verbal exchange over writing, which adds its own layer of meaning to the art of poetry because reciting it adds new life to the words as it changes and morphs through each person.
With this added perspective, it was actually interesting to recognize some of the poems in this from the other English-translated collection that I read before, The Quatrains of Khalilullah Khalili, and notice the slight differences in content.
This collection blows the other one out of the water though with the introduction by Azoy and the great art by Sohalia Khalili, both of which add so much to it.

There are a whole bunch of poems in here I genuinely liked a lot. I noticed that Khalili mentions different bugs a bunch, often with a certain respect towards them, which I personally love. Hell, the titular poem, and the longest one of the bunch, is centered completely around bugs.

I'm really grateful for having had the chance to read this and I recommend this wholeheartedly to anyone who is interested in the subject matter. This would probably make for a great first glimpse into Afghan literary culture too.
I just wish it wasn't so hard to come by. I hope at least Rekhta keeps hosting it for a long time.