Learn Persian with trying conversation.

Poetry Sadis Bani Audam.

Introduction with Fadit Shafinuri. Hello, Leila, Jan, Salam, Duraud.

Salam, Bahad, Jan.

Thank you so much for joining me on another poetry episode, perhaps the most important one that we've done so far.

I totally agree. This is one of the most quintessential Persian poems that we have out there.

That's right. So Sadis Bani Adam, and I have have to say that Fayd has recorded the song. Was this the first

poem that you ever recorded? Is that right? Yeah, it was actually commissioned to me at the University

of Texas at Austin by a friend at the time in the Persian department. And she said, it would be

wonderful if you recorded a melody to this so I could teach my students to it.

This was back in 2005.

And what started out as a commission ended up being one of my most played and replayed songs, Bani Odam.

And the melody carried through, and I later recorded it in Tehran in 2007.

And to this day, the meaning holds true as it has in a timeless sense. And I can't think of any other time in history where it's ever so important

to repeat these words and to understand them at its core. That's right. So it's the, I would say it's

the quintessential Iranian poem.

There's so many poems that everybody has memorized, but this one in particular is one that

everybody has memorized. It is written everywhere in Iran. You see it. And as soon as someone

says, Bani, Adam, you know, you know exactly what they're

trying to say, what they're saying. But it's really seeped its way into Western culture as well.

There's a rug with this poem hanking in the United Nations. Coldplay has a song where Bani-Aadam is in there.

I mean, how many Persian poems, ancient Persian poems, are there in current, very popular pop music, for example?

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