TEHRAN – The Art Bureau of the Islamic Ideology Dissemination Organization has launched a poetry congress to salute Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani for his valor during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

The meeting entitled “The Sarbedaran Commander Poetry Congress” will open on Thursday at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall.

“The meeting also intends to collect top poems on the great valor Martyr Soleimani showed during the early days of the war,” the congress president, Morteza Amiri-Esfandaqeh, said in a press release on Monday.

“The poems should be as perfect as his heroism,” he noted and added, “This congress would help bolster the revolution poetry.”   

An expert team composed of Amiri-Esfandaqeh, Saeid Yusefnia and Mostafa Mohaddes Khorasani will select poems, and music composer Hossein Taqipur is acting as an advisor to the congress.   

The congress plans to publish the poems selected in a book.

Amiri-Esfandaqeh said that the team has been told to do its job without any lenience and laxity and added, “With respect to the emotions and feelings of all poets participating in this meeting, we will do our best to prevent any superficial poem from being selected for the collection.”

A member of General Soleimani’s family and a group of literati have been invited to attend the opening ceremony of the congress, during which some musicians and literati will be honored for their creations on the commander.

Top 21 poems will be awarded during the closing ceremony of the congress, which will be on a date during the last week of November.

The expert team also plans to collect all poems ever composed on General Soleimani to select the best for publication in a book under the title of “First Poetry Collection of the Resistance Literature for Hajji Qassem Soleimani”.

Numerous poets focused on General Soleimani in their compositions following the assassination of the commander of the Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, in a U.S. air raid in Baghdad on January 3, 2020.

A collection of the poems in a book named “The Phoenix of Quds”, which was published by the Khate Moqaddam Publishing House in June 2020. The book features poems by Alireza Qazveh, Mohammadreza Tahmasbi, Ali Davudi, Mehdi Jandar and dozens of other Iranian poets.

An anthology of elegies for the martyrdom of General Soleimani was also published in the book “Man of the Field”.   

Poet Milad Erfanpur collected the elegies for the book published by Maktabe Hajji Qassem Publications in Tehran in March.

Afshin Ala’s long versified story on Soleimani was also published in a book entitled “Sarbaznameh” (“Book of Soldiers”) earlier in January.

The poetry attracted the praise of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

Photo: This file photo shows a young Qassem Soleimani leading the troops on the front line during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

MMS/YAW