One of the most noble forms of Persian literature is poetry. Iranians highly value their poets who kept their culture and language alive even during numerous invasions. Persian poetry is as ancient as Avesta (the holy book of Zoroastrians) where first form of poetry is documented.

Persian poets express their creativity in different forms and styles. The earliest poetry was of two types. One was the ballad and the other was the epic. The ballad later developed into different forms such as lyric, hymn, satire and panegyric. The epic poem is an enlarged ballad. Therefore, the origin of all poetry is in the ballad although no records have remained from these primitive ballads.

Persian songs goes back to 3000 BC to the time of king Jamshid. Xenophon wrote about songs that were sung when Cyrus the Great was still a boy. The halls of the Achaemenian palace at Persepolis echoed with the poetic singing of the tale of the romantic love of Zariadres and Odatis.

The history of poetry and song during the time of Parthian rule is unrecorded. However, Sassanian culture cherished poetic art. The Arab conquest influenced the Persian vocabulary causing an even smoother poetic verse. Poetry, nursed for 200 years by the care of three dynasties (Tahirid, Saffarid, Samanid). Therefore, it was during ninth century when the new form of Persian poetry began which is found today.

Persian language outstands among all Eastern languages in poetry. Persian language is soft and expressive. There are many options for Persian poets in use of words because there are many meanings to one word and many ways to express one's thought. That is why Persian poetry and language are rich in expression.

One of the early forms of poetry was qasida in royal courts. Qasida are poems of more than 100 couplets that do not rhyme. Anvari was one of the poets who used qasida.

Ghazal from about 12th century is another form of lyric. Ghazal poems were a much shorter form, 10 couplets that do not rhyme and mainly used to express love, both human or mystic. Hafez and Saadi mastered this form of poetry.

Rubai and dobaty are both four lines poems which are distinguished from each other by their rhythm. They may express mystical, romantic or philosophical themes. Omar Khayam is one of the pioneers in writing Rubai and his books are translated into many languages.

Masnavi with its unique rhyming couplets was utilized for epic poems. Avesta included epic poetry. Ferdousi wrote Shahnameh or 'Book Of Kings,' which is a finished form of epic poetry with 50,000 couplets. The narrative form of masnavi was used by Nizami. Masnavi was also used by the mystic poets Farid od Din Attar who wrote The Conference of The Birds and Jalaluddin Rumi who wrote the Masnavi Manawi.