Talk:Ahmad Shamlou

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The article is very pointed. Shamlou is also famous for many of his love poems, and also his tribute to Forough Farrokhzad, to say the least. He is widely known for bringing "white poem" to Persian also. Roozbeh 19:11, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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[edit] Comment

Shamlou is a product of politics, he was not a talented poet. His knowledge of Persian literature was very limited. He became famous because he was favored by the communist party of Iran ( Hezabe Toodeh)I strongly agree that his place in future in next to nothing. I agree. I strongly oppose this sentence "Shamlou as a poet will fade into oblivion". Although Shamlou have had some controversial points of view, he is known as one of the most prominent successors of Nima Youshij. Even people who oppose his political/Ideological points of view agree that he had great skill in literature and Persian poet. Just read some writings of B. Khorramshahi or Mousavi Garmaroudi as two examples.Ehsan 6:11, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Roozbeh for toning down the embarrassingly mawkish praise. I feel that this article is still unobjective and promotional. Most certainly not all Iranians view Shamlou in the same light as the author of this article does. Even the late Fereydoun Moshiri who was a man of exceptional care with his words, in an interview had some less than complimentary things to say about Shamlou. M.A.Sales did the same thing in another interview. --K1 07:42, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I added 'German' to his translations and changed his "amazing journalistic talent" to significant. I hope this is a bit more NPOW... Refdoc 23:52, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Much of the perceived lack of neutrality and "mawkishness" is the result of an overuse of praising/superlative adjectives. I would think the article is salvageable by toning these down. Refdoc 15:58, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] the Admirers of the Masters

I am not happy with this sentence, bad POV, any ideas ? : To those familiar with the works of Nima Youshij, for instance, there is not a whole lot new, but those who adore the works of the masters find much that is distressful.Refdoc 07:48, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I changed it, Tell me what you think Refdoc 15:49, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC) (The cut sentence: To those familiar with the works of Nima Youshij, for instance, there is not a whole lot new, but those who adore the works of the masters find much that is distressful.)

[edit] Nazis

What is meant with him contributing to the war effort on the side of the Nazis ? I do know that the old Shah was friendly towards Hitler and was eventually deposed of by the Allies, but I am not aware of Nazi war effort in Iran ???? Please either enlighten me or clarify the sentence Refdoc 21:18, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Edit war of Jan 2005

Some anonymous user(s) began an edit war on this article by reverting to an old version. That version reads as follows:

Ahmad Shamlou contemporary Iranian poet, was noted mostly for his political poems. He often tried to attract attention to himself by generating controversy or being perverse. This practice eventually backfired on him and caused him to not being taken as a serious personality by many Iranian intellectuals and the academia.
His fans are typically ardent and even somewhat cultish about him. They are typically fans of his persona more so than they are fans of his poetry. For this reason, some people predict that after the passing of the current generation of his cultish fans, Shamlou as a poet will fade into oblivion.
Shamlou was a professed Marxist even after the fall of the Iron Curtain. He died in a Tehran hospital in 2000 at the age of 75.

They all the time emphasise that the last version was full of misinformation and was not factual and their version is more factual. There is no single reference to any part of the text they find factually inaccurate. The last version contains a biographical paragraph, magazine he published and list of his books. I don't see any misinformation in these cases because they can easily be verified. But about his poetry and political views there might be some disputes. Hope we can settle the dispute in talk page and decide about necassary changes to the article. --Pouya 14:36, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hello Pouya. What is your problem with the version which you pasted here yourself? Everything that it states is true about Shamlou. Every statement it contains is 100% true about Shamlou, with the possible exception of "some people predict that with the passing of the current generation of his cultish fans, Shamlou as a poet will fade into oblivion." -- but I think even that statement is absolutely correct, many people think the same about Shamlou. In fact, outside of the Iranian leftists (marxist-lenninists, and the whole left spectrum) Shamlou very negligible popularity and support. But what percentage of Iranians where leftist? very small percentage. And not even all leftists liked Shamlou (neither his persona nor his poetry). Now, with regard to the version of the article that you are pushing, if you pay attention to the history of that version, you will see that it has started by unreasonable and laughable parise for Shamlou, and then some poeple have toned it down a bit. The problem is that it is a generally praising essay about Shamlou which has been editorialized a little bit. This is not how an encyclopedic article should be. The shorter version is brief, objective, accurate and informative. So a reader gets a reasonble idea about who Shamlou was; and it is not written by a culthish fan of Shamlou. The praising version contains many inaccuracies and exaggerations. For example, since when has Shamlou been a "nationalist" ?!! He was a well-known communist to the core, and as stated in the brief version of the article, he remained a communist even after the fall of the Iron Curtain. So perhaps you are one of those unreasonable fans of Shamlou yourself, possibly from a leftist family background who thinks Shamlou was a godsent and one of the most brilliant figures of all human history ?!!

Hi anonymous,

  • Thank you for not reverting current version and instead beginning a discussion.
  • My problems with this version:
    1. It does not contain his biographical background;
    2. It does not contain his works. Why shouldn't we mention his books and the magazine he published?
    3. It judges about things that cannot be verified. Articles in wikipedia should contain verfiable facts. Have there been a thorough survey among his fans? How can we attribute his fans as being ardent or cultish? In fact most of his fans, that I know persoanlly, do not care about his persona or his political thoughts. Isn't it possible to like a poet's poetry regardless of his ideology?
    4. It says "some people predict....". You know how many other "somebody predict"s can be added to this or other articles? Articles are going to contain items that are known right now and predictions are only allowed by scientific reasons.
  • It's amazing that you firmly believe in ideological distrubition of his fans. How can you prove that his fans are mainly among marxists? I have seen many of his fans but hardly can I remeber a marxist.
  • If you think the current version is praising him edit it to a more NPOV version. No one onjects that.
  • According to above-mentioned reasonings the old version is neither informative nor objective. If we want to let a reader get a reasonable idea about him, we have to provide an NPOV collection of facts about him.
  • About his political thoughts we can only add facts. If you are sure that there is nothing to prove his being nationalist, claim it here. If there were no objection you can remove that part. On the other hand, if you have any documnet that proves his being a marxist, add the fact and indicate the reference.
  • Thanks for enlightening me by providing first-hand info about background of my family that I have never exposed to. Can't you discuss without accusing others? PLEASE do not make talk pages persoanl. --Pouya 20:40, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)


OK I modified the article and removed excessive praises, cleaned it up a little and (hopefully) made it a bit better organized. I didn't put any of the stuff from the "other" version, but I think at least some of that stuff would be well-justified to be included in the article (for instance, his attention seeking, creating of controversy, etc.) As for your asking if i am "sure he was not a nationalist prove it here" I can say why doesn't the article prove he was a nationalist? He was a staunch marxist and internationalist. He was a well-known communist and internationalist. One cannot be on both sides of the table at the same time. I removed that part because it is well-known that he was a staunch communist and internationalist; and I myself heard him make fun of nationalism (in fact he even used abusive language about nationalists). Regarding his arrest by the Allied Forces in Tehran in 1943 and his support for the Nazis, I don't think even you believe that. But if you know that to be true, let's verify the facts first, and if they turn out to be true, we'll put them in the article, why not?
Finally, I didn't use a personal attack on you. Due to your stubborn (and almost immediate) reverts, I guessed you must be an ardent fan of Shamlou, and I said "perhaps" you are? Asking someone "perhaps you have of a leftist family background?" is a personal attack? You make it sound like I said you are syphilitic or have AIDS or something.


This new version is OK with me. Thanks for the contribution. --Pouya 07:59, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright violation last year

Earlier in 2004 an unknown user added a whole bulk to this text (see diff of the edit[1]) at least some of which is of doubtful provenance (compare with [2]. Now I appreciate teh article has changed a lot sinc ethen, but I thought we should better be aware of this. Refdoc 02:03, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have written to Professor Bashiri, the author of the original text. He writes back:

From: Iraj Bashiri <bashi001@umn.edu> To: refdoc@xxxxxx Subject: Text on Ahmad Shamlu Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 14:55:03 -0600 (20:55 GMT)

Dear Sir,

Thank you for bringing the Shamlu piece in Wikipedia to my attention. I am dismayed thst a reference site such as Wikipedia should reproduce an authors' copyrighted materials almost verbatum without any appropriate references provided. However, in as much as the materials I have placed on the Web are for the expansion of world knowledge about Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, I would not disapprove of your retaining the article as long as appropriate credit is assigned.

Sincerely, Iraj Bashiri

What now? Refdoc 21:23, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I suggest: (1) remove the copyvio notice; (2) keep the attribution line at the end, but perhaps add a link to Professor Bashiri's site; (3) make sure his OK for "retaining the article" is a GFDL release, i.e., that he's not approving only the Wikipedia use, but subsequent uses by others as permitted by the GFDL (see Wikipedia:Boilerplate request for permission for some suitable language). JamesMLane 22:02, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)


Don't you think we should remove the COPYVIO notice now? User:Behnam 4 Mar 2005

I wrote to him, he never answered my request for GFDL permissions. What now? Refdoc 23:27, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed POV Dispute Flag

I took the liberty of deleting this flag, since the article reads neutral-enough to me and there have been no substantial edits related to POV for some months....FRS 20:49, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Surname

Please excuse, but does anyone know what his last name(Shamlou) means in Farsi and when it was created(perhaps shortly before he was born)?--Anglius 00:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unspecified source for Image:Ahmad Shamlou.jpg

I found Image:Ahmad Shamlou.jpg and noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. Someone will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If it was obtained it from a website, then a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a restatement of that website's terms of use of its content, is usually sufficient information. However, if the copyright holder is different from the website's publisher, then their copyright should also be acknowledged.

As well as adding the source, please add a proper copyright licensing tag if the file doesn't have one already. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the {{GFDL-self-no-disclaimers}} tag can be used to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Fair use, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

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Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 02:33, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Ahmad Shamlou.jpg

Image:Ahmad Shamlou.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 02:33, 28 May 2007 (UTC)