Poetry’s Rugged Beauty

Stefania Van Dyke is Associate Director, Interpretive Engagement. She has been at the DAM since 2012. She recommends you check out the Thread Studio on level 6 of the Martin Building.

The carpets in Rugged Beauty: Antique Carpets from Western Asia offer a window into the artistic and utilitarian innovations of weavers, as well as the cross-cultural exchanges between present-day Turkey, Iran, and the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia) from the 1500s to the 1900s. The rhythm and repetition of western Asian carpet designs have been compared to music, with their harmony of colors and textures.

Consider, too, poetry. Some ancient Persian poets, as you’ll learn in the exhibition, used carpets to describe their craft, a poet weaving words, interlocking them for rhythm and rhyme. Also, carpets from the region sometimes feature poetry in their designs. For example, the museum's Fantasy Animal Carpet with Poem features a ghazal (love poem) by Saadi Shirazi (1210–1291 or 1292) woven into the cartouches that serve as a border around the central design. The exhibition includes an English translation of the poem (translated from Farsi by Saman Aalipour and Paul Ramsey).

Heriz or Tabriz, Northwest Iran, Fantasy Animal Carpet with Poem (Vaq Vaq Carpet) (detail), about 1880. Hand-knotted silk pile; silk warp and weft; 196 x 146.75 in. Neusteter Textile Collection at the Denver Art Museum: Gift of James E. Stokes and Mrs. Donald Magarrell, 1956.38.

Modern poets, too, use carpets as metaphor. Such as the Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad (1934–1967), who mused about silence, spirituality, sensuality, and feminism, often using carpets as metaphors. For example, following is an excerpt from her poem Wind-up Doll:

Inside eternal hours one can fix lifeless eyes on the smoke of a cigarette, on a cup's form, the carpet's faded flowers, or on imaginary writings onthe wall.

Even more explicit is Armenian-American poet Peter Balakian's (b. 1951) long poem The Oriental Rug. Here is an excerpt:

Now I undo the loopsof yarn I rested my head on.Under each flowera tufted pile loosens.I feel the wool give wayas if six centuries of feethad worn it back to the hardearth floor it was made to cover.Six centuries of Turkish heelson my spine-dyed back:madder, genista, sumac—one skin color in the soil.

As you explore the exhibition, in addition to seeing how the art of carpet making is still a living practice throughout western Asia, we hope you also consider the artistic relationship between weaving and poetry.