This is the twenty-seventh and final book of original poems in English by the acclaimed Thai poet Montri Umavijani.

Totally Tehran is a poetic record of his journey to Iran on the eve of the second American War in Iraq. We can see from the Author’s Note that Montri considered it a distillation, “This volume shows the weaver making the warp and the woof out of a few strands. These are “nothings” dyed in many colours. It is the tightest tapestry that I have ever attempted.” The volume is included in his posthumous As Old As the World: The Complete English Poetry Books of Montri Umavijani (1941-2006), published by highmoonoon in 2007.

Already in the late 1960s Kenneth Rexroth considered Umavijani to be Thailand's greatest living poet. He was subsequently published in James Laughlin's New Directions Annual, and his poems can be found in anthologies worldwide, including the Norton anthology, Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (2008). 

In Romania there is a full-length hardback translation of his English poems, and “Montri Umavijani Day” is celebrated there once a year. He has also published his poetry in Thai and is an avid translator of Thai into English and English/French/German into Thai.

Printed in Thailand (2003).

Look inside:

Introduction

Opening Poem