Master of poetry Moshfegh Kashani passed away Sunday night (Jan 18) at the age of 89 in Tehran.
While attending the birthday celebration of another contemporary poet Soheil Mahmoudi held at the Iranian Poets’ Society, Kashani was reciting his quatrain composed for Mahmoudi’s birthday, when he fainted. The master poet was immediately taken to hospital, but doctors’ attempts could not save his life and he passed away due to heart failure.
At the function Kashani had recalled the old memories of the time when he worked in the national radio and cooperation with other notable poets such as Qeysar Aminpour, Salman Harati, and Soheil Mahmoudi, Khabaronline reported.
A number of cultural figures and officials including former president Seyed Mohammad Khatami, Mahmoud Doaei, Sadegh Kharazi, Saed Bagheri, Fatemeh Rakei had also attended the function.
The Academy of Arts of the Islamic Republic of Iran and a number of cultural and literary figures offered condolences on the veteran poet’s demise. Alireza Qazveh, Hamid Sabzevari, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, Ali Mousavi-Garmaroudi, Mohamad-Ali Bahmani among others expressed their heartfelt condolences to the family of the late poet.
Powerful Memory
According to Kashani’s close friends, he retained his poetic intelligence until the last moment of his life. He kept writing poetry and still had a powerful memory of recalling old poems.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei at a ceremony to pay tributes to the great poet last August, had stated that Kashani “is an honorable man with high morals, whose poetry, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has always been in accordance with the goals of the revolution and served religious purposes.”
In 2002, Kashani was honored as an eminent figure of literature in the second ceremony of Ever-Lasting Names.
Abbas Keymanesh, known as Moshfegh Kashani, was born in 1925 in Kashan, Iran. He was a graduate of the University of Tehran and worked for about 40 years in the field of education. He was the president of the board of directors at the Iranian Poets’ Society. During his lifetime, he wrote tens of poetry books.
