The 113th Goftegu (Year VII) public debate of Armanshahr concentrated on the presentation of the call for participation of musicians in the 3rd Simorgh peace prize competition. The meeting was held at Ibn Sina Hall in Herat on Tuesday 7 May 2013, where a sizeable number of poets, cultural activists and musicians took part.
Rooholamin Amini, deputy director of Armanshahr Foundation, read out the call for the third round of Simorgh peace prize. The musicians (songwriters, composers and singers) were called to send in the works to the secretariat of the Simorgh peace prize by 7 June 2013. The works shall qualify for the competition if they endeavour to combat war, militarism, discrimination, torture and despotism and to promote peace and affection.
More information about the call is available at: http://openasia.org/item/4083
Amini subsequently congratulated the second anniversary of the weekly Simorgh critique meetings to participants. The critique meetings were initiated by Armanshahr Foundation in spring 2011 and brought together young poets and writers every Monday. At the meetings, poets and writers present their works, and discuss cultural and social issues. Some of the meetings begin with short films, which the participants discuss afterwards.
The public meeting continued with a text that Khaled Ghaderi, a member of Simorgh critique meetings, read out in which he reported on Simorgh critique meetings:
“The Simorgh critique meetings took shape within a small circle two years ago and later brought together other people involved in poetry and literature. The meeting has evidently had ups and downs. One of the problems was the lower participation of women. Although occasionally half of the participants were women, they never had a sustained participation. On the other hand, the persistence of the meetings and the changes in the works of the participants indicate their points of strength. The works of a number of the young people who took to literature and poetry have grown in quality and strength and they have got engaged in critique and dialogue. The occasional accuracy of their views is cause for joy.”
Ramin Arabnejad (poet) also read a text in which he reported on the history of the literary critique meetings: “The meetings functioned as classes for all of us. We taught and learned fromeach other. Differences of opinion persuaded us to engage in discussions.”
Poems were recited in the second part of the meeting, beginning with Elias Alawi’s “I pray to God for the grapes to ripen”, a winner of the first round of Simorgh peace prize, which Farideh Rahmani (Parsi) recited: I pray to God for the grapes to ripen/for the world to get drunk/for the streets to stumble/for the presidents and the paupers to rub shoulders.
Watch the recitation of this poem, available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHvwJc1RtiQ
Other poets also read out their works and one of the writers read out his minimal stories.
Then, Armanshahr Foundation presented letters of appreciation to members of the Simorgh critique meetings and finally, the Abi (Blue) pop music group of Herat took the stage and performed the song titled Human, with lyrics of the late Fereydoon Moshiri, for the first time:
Humans shall take shelter in the jungle again/they shall take to the mountains/hide in the caves.
Watch the video clip of this performance here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La21BEwOz4A
Throughout the meeting, the moderator recited poems from Iranian and Afghan poets.
