Prolific as he is in various genres, Shamloo is a poet; the rest of his work, therefore, is important primarily for its relationship to his poetry….

Shamloo understands well the advantages of the Western methodologies but has taught himself to adapt them to the Iranian context. Compassion, resistance, empathy, and technique become inseparable functions of his poetic process…. What Shamloo gives us is the lyrical expression of a spontaneous mood—a mood that grows out of immediate experience; this expression is then repeated, qualified and elaborated subconsciously until it becomes a metaphor and finally a representative state of mind. He writes the most graceful and delicate lyrics in Persian since Hafiz (1324–88); at the same time, he has developed a muscular free verse that suits his strong attraction to prophecy as the poet's major role….

["Unfolding in Fog"] is wordy, vague and far inferior to his previous works. A...