Poetry of Epiphany: James Wright and Sohrab Sepehri

This paper’s aim is to present a comparative study of the poetry of the American James Arlington Wright and the Persian Sohrab Sepehri in order to examine the main ground of convergence in their poetry, which is epiphany or sudden revelation of truth. This revelation is mostly informed by intuitive, as opposed to logical, thinking and a mystical union with nature and natural elements. The poetic art of both Sepehri and Wright precisely consists in reminding the readers of the necessity of redefining and reconstructing the self through an awakening based on spiritual moments. In both Sepehri and Wright, the magic moments are presented through epiphany whose mission is to alert the soul to the absence/presence of what matters, and to the ways of dealing with the problem.