Spatio-temporality and Existential Anxiety in Shahrām Sheydāyi’s A Fire for Another Fire

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant Professor of English Literature, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran.

10.22075/jlrs.2026.40598.2842

Abstract

This study explores the distinctive features of A Fire for Another Fire (1995), the debut poetry collection of Shahrām Sheydāyi (1967–2009), whose works have received little sustained academic attention so far. In this regard, apart from Sheydāyi’s self-conscious isolation from literary circles, the lack of due recognition needs to be investigated in relation to conceptual challenges of a deceptively simple, prose-like language. To probe the significance of his oeuvre, the present study examines the interrelatedness of the major themes in his poetry – particularly those related to time and existential anxiety – and how they are formalized through a writing style characterized by novel imagery, defamiliarization, fragmentation, and semantic disruption. It is intended to provide close reading and analysis of excerpts from approximately half of the collection’s thirty-nine poems and nine short pieces, organized into three sections and devoted respectively to poetic strategies and writing style, the thematic liminality of dream in relation to spatio-temporal confines, and the role of nature and poetry in confronting existential anxiety. The reading reveals that the poet’s encounter with the confinement of time and space is mediated through dream as a liminal temporal mechanism through which memory, anticipation, and present anxiety are held together beyond chronological sequence. Likewise, nature emerges as a profound source of solace in the face of existential despair – an anguish further confronted through poetry as an act of resistance against mortality. Rather than offering escape, nature and poetry function as forms of aesthetic resistance: they give shape to the speaker’s confrontation with finitude.

Keywords

References

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Journal Of Linguistic and Rhetorical Studies
Volume 17, Issue 43
In progress
March 2026
Pages 205-226

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