News at Eleven: I walked into a room in Harat,

in western Iran, and it said, "Harat Literary Association." It was the toughest audience I had ever faced. Unbelievable. But they seemed to approve of me. And they asked me about one American poet that you would never guess. They said, "What do you think of Charles Bukowski?" And I said, "I love him." And they said, "He translates really well into Farsi."

from Common Ground: Rumi’s Timeless Resonance

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