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Above: Pomegranate blossom growing in the author's garden.
Esther Kamkar: Iranian-born poet, artist and writer now living in the USA. Poems that explore the depths of love and longing, politics, motherhood, despair and healing.
Visit Esther Kamkar's web site
 This page is dedicated to my longtime friend Esther Kamkar, alive and well in Palo Alto, California. A remarkable person who manages to combine her skills as a poet, mother, chef and artist in an accomplished dance.
Esther Kamkar's poetry is as changing as the ocean, as passionate as a pomegranate tree in blossom, as deep and clear as a pool in a mountain stream. Her poems are lovingly crafted, utterly honest, full of evocative imagery and awakenings that bounce around in our consciousness - to be enjoyed again and again, like a favorite book or work of art. Esther's wish? That her words may inspire you and speak to your poetic and artistic voice. So go ahead, immerse yourself and enjoy.
Born in Tehran, Iran in 1947, Esther left in 1965 for a 7-year stay in Jerusalem and has lived in the USA since 1973, in N. California from 1982 to present.
She began writing poems in 1989 and received an Artist Grant from the Peninsula Community Foundation (2001) to publish a collection of her poetry, "Hummingbird Conditions", in a letterpress limited edition to be used as sample books to teach a series of workshops on poetry and handmade bookmaking to children in the Ecumenical Hunger Project’s summer program in E. Palo Alto.
Later she received a grant from the Clay and Glass Arts Foundation (2003) for her project, "Personal Narratives in Poetry and Clay", a series of workshops for children in the Boys and Girls Club in E. Palo Alto.
She gives frequent readings in numerous venues in the San Francisco Bay Area. and continues to explore poetry, writing, graphic art as well as culinary delights via her In-Home Chef and Catering Service in the San Francisco Bay area.
PUBLICATIONS
- Book "Hummingbird Conditions" 2002, Ziba Press, Peter Koch, Letterpress Printing Studios. Also printed by Tollbooth Press, in photocopied form.
- Chapbook "A Leopard in My Pocket" 1998
POETRY CONTRIBUTIONS:
- Disquietingmuses.com
- Bellowing Ark, Shoreline, Washington
- The Monserrat Review, San Jose, California
- The Sandhill Review, Stanford, California
- Present Time, Seattle, Washigton
- Department of Justice, Corrections Academy Curriculum
Visit Esther Kamkar's web site
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:: Logo woodcut by Barbara Leventhal-Stern
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on the side
Assemblage
“How may I touch you across this chasm of thrown things?”
Li Young Lee
'The Winged Seed'
I say,
Don’t be afraid.
Take a leap across
And you may find
Only yourself
Wandering.
Then I say,
Don’t be afraid.
Take a leap in
And you may find
An angle of light
Where the discarded
The scraps, the crushed
Look alive and mysterious.
Then begin to salvage
The thrown things:
Twisted pieces of wire,
Ragged pieces of rope,
Shattered mirrors.
Collect, trim
Sand the edges
Buff to a luster
Arrange and glue
Assemble and mount.
Step back,
Look again with tenderness.
If you like
The kind of shadow it makes
You will be consoled.
Esther Kamkar
MORE LINKS
Blossom Wedding Flowers - Auckland
Waterman Chronicles
FrontBeach Archive
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