Literati celebrate Parvin Etesami’s birthday

TEHRAN,March 14(MNA) -- The 105th anniversary of the birth of renowned Iranian poetess Parvin Etesami was held at the Iran National Library and Archives on Monday. At the beginning of the ceremony, academic and university professor Asghar Dadbeh began his speech with a piece of poem by Etesami. Parvin lived in a society that was not ideal. She also had a bitter life suffering from numerous torments in her social as well as personal life, Dadbeh mentioned. Afterward, the great scholar Sirus Shamisa presented an article entitled “Fields of Silence in Poetry of Parvin”. In his article, he tried to analyze Parvin’s poem through some western literary approaches. Shamisa categorized silence in Parvin’s poem into three parts: personal, political and modernism. She called Parvin a classist poet whose poems are full of advice that are mostly for popular people. Then the director of Iranian Society of Cultural Works and Luminaries Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Javad Adabi spoke about Parvin’s poetry. He said that she composed social poems in which she criticized social issues of that time. At the ceremony, the secretary of the event Asadollah Moazzami expressed his hope that Parvin’s birth anniversary would be held internationally next year. Scholar Mir Jalaleddin Kazzazi also talked about Parvin’s poetry calling her an “eloquent” poetess whose poems were beyond her time. Literary critic Ali Dehbashi was also invited to the event for his collection of Parvin Etesami’s poetry. He said that he has edited the three-volume collection for 20 years. This is a part of project he has done on 100 renowned literati from the past century. He added that authors and poets should be evaluated in their own time and situation and it is not fair to compare them with literati of other times. Etesami (1907-40) was one of the most prominent Persian poets of the 20th century. She composed her first poem in a classical style at the age of eight. Her first collection of poems was published in 1935 and she received the Medal of Art and Culture in 1936. Her poems contain social, humanitarian, educational and mystical concepts, and no allusions to romantic love or feminine sentiments are found in her work.