The poem is dated 1937, hence Bunting cannot have actually visited the town; although he did later travel in the Middle East, whether he ever went to Afghanistan is unknown but unlikely. However, in the same year his first son was born (in Wisconsin) and named Rustam; evidently the legend of Rustam and Sohrab inspired the poem as well as the child's name. The poem itself is an unrhymed sonnet, less experimental than many of Bunting's short poems from the period, but successful in its own elegiac manner.[citation needed][original research?]