According to Kanoon General Directorate for Public Relations and International Affairs, the director of Kanoon Cultural and Literary Creations held the meeting of the jury for the third “Mehrvareh Poetry”. The participating works were reviewed from qualitative and quantitative aspects.

Hossein Tavallaie and Maryam Eslami are an expert; children and adolescents poet; Hossein Dehlavi, poet are the ones who participated in the meeting.

At the beginning of the meeting Hossain Tavallaie said, “The call for the third  Mehrvareh Poetry was announced in summer and judging was done in September. About 900 works arrived. They were handed over to five experts and literature instructors in provinces, all of whom are poets. The first stage of judging was done; about 300 works made way to the final stage. We did the judging.

He continued, “These works were in various poetic formats. Adolescents experienced formats such as classical, sonnet, Masnavi, quartet and the like. There were poetries in the form of free verse, neo-poetry, and blank verse. Therefore, we received various types of formats selected from 23 cities and of high quality. This year we dedicated a section to limerick. We invited Esmaeel Amini to talk about satire poetry, methods and techniques of versing this type of poetry, which influenced children’s poetry. Therefore, considerable number of selected poetries were in this area.   

He said out of 90 poets selected 20 works were limerick and the poets age ranged from 13 to 18. The adult members’ age category participating ranged from 18 to 22.

 Adolescents were well acquainted with the classical form

Maryam Eslami said, “There were richer classic poetry than blank verse and Nimaiee poetry. While if we view the story from afar, we feel that versing blank poetry is easy and welcomed more but practically we witness that our adolescents all over the country and the members of workshops and associations have good knowledge of classic poetry and have versed fantastic poetry in the form of sonnet.

She added that the reason for this event is the associations all over the country and the instructors and experts who work hard in province associations. The presence of experts who are guests in all the meetings of associations and criticizing children’s works caused improvement in their work even in classic format that calls for art, skill and knowledge. The selected works were mostly from classic poetry.

He added that “Social matters and problems were reflected in the poetries as much as love which shows that our adolescents are not only specializing in poetry and literature form but also they focus on current issues in society and are aware of them; meanwhile social problems had well reflected in limerick poetry.”

Hossein Tavalliee said, “65 pieces of limerick arrived at this section which was three times last year.”

Hossein Dehlavi, a poet and another judge participating at the meeting said, “Regarding classic poetry, the most important thing I noticed was the children's mastery of the art of poetry, and of the number of poetries I received; only about two or three had very small rhyming problems; on the other hand, the poetries were fine from linguistic point of view. Though the poet was an adolescent but their poetry had the characteristics poetry versed by an adult from professional point of view.”  

Mehrvareh’s Are Welcomed

Hossein Tavallaei added, “Children who had versed short blank poetry were more successful; short blank verses were selected.  Long blank verse had turned into prose rather than poetry and this is a linguistic shortcoming.

Maryam Eslami said, “One of the characteristics of Mehrvareh is the works sent by new members; we could observe the growing trend in the number of adolescents participating from first Mehrvareh to the future ones; we can observe how the growth has been which can influence the instructors’ performance and their profile.

Hossein Tavallaei said, “Many of you may wonder what Merhvareh is? Mehrvareh is in fact an opportunity to accompany and exchange experiences. We omitted competition section in Mehrvareh. Children’s works are not ranked. This event has an educational function and children are not hurt by the thought of ranking first or second, if they are better or not. The judging standards were if employed the main elements of poetry and if they have a various insight and new discovery in poetry, then the poet is picked up. That is why there was no quota for provinces. One province has on candidate and one twelve.

In line with Ms. Eslami’s talks Tavallaei said, “What Ms. Eslami says is right. At present, Mehrvareh’s are changed into a brand at Kanoon and kids are waiting for the call.”

At the end, Tavallaei said, “90 poets were selected out of whom 86 are new ones. Since the step before association is workshop, these statistics shows that new ones have arrived at the association via workshop; in the final stage of the three Mehrvareh about 250 new adolescents and youngsters actively involved in the area of poetry are introduced to the literature society of Iran.

It must be mentioned that the third “Poetry Mehrvareh” by Kanoon Creation  was held in summer 2021.