Nima’s Innovation in the Essential Form of Persian Poetry

This essay intends to show that Nima Youshij’s innovation is not limited to breaking the forms within the old traditions. In addition to bringing about innovations in the poetic form and creating new approaches and conceptual experiences, he also created a very new and unique form in the Persian poetry. In the present essay this form is called “Organic Symbol”, which is a special poetic structure. In it a phenomenon, or an image, becomes the major focus of the poet, and gradually that image takes over the whole poem and finally turns into a compressed symbol for both the literary and artistic concepts. This poetic form covers over 20% of Nima’s poetry and faced the acclaim of the contemporary poets; therefore part of the well-known Persian contemporary poetry is composed in the same form. This essay discusses the entity and basic principles of this poetic structure and its development, while it also points to the influential factors leading to the foundation of this poetic form during the mentioned period in Iran’s history.