{"id":94,"date":"2006-04-17T11:59:24","date_gmt":"2006-04-17T11:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/nucleus-import\/?p=94"},"modified":"2006-04-17T11:59:24","modified_gmt":"2006-04-17T11:59:24","slug":"exiled-poet-reza-baraheni","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/exiled-poet-reza-baraheni\/","title":{"rendered":"Exiled Poet &#8211; Reza Baraheni"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"leftbox\"><img src='https:\/\/mahmag.org\/nucleus-import\/media\/7\/20060417-reza_baraheni.jpg' width='200' height='200' alt='Reza Baraheni' \/><\/div>\n<p>Reza Baraheni is a fomer Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Tehran, also former President of Canadian PEN.  Below is a few poems form a book of poetry he published in English in 1976, <i>God&#8217;s Shadow:<\/i> <i>Prison Poems <\/i>is a collection of poems based on a period of 102 days spent in solitary confinement in Iran, during the time of the Shah. He was also imprisoned in the fall of 1981 and the winter of 1982 by the Islamic Republic of Iran.<\/p>\n<p><b>Nostalgia<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Oh if a man could crawl out of here<br \/>\nas a snake or lizard, and go-no!<br \/>\nGrow wings <br \/>\nand take flight, fly<br \/>\nto a place where the world no longer resembles a dirty rumor<br \/>\na place where the scorched feast of sand<br \/>\nstretches  to be alone without<br \/>\neven hands or feet, without head, without cock<br \/>\nto be&#8230;<br \/>\nAnd the sea wash him constantly<br \/>\nlike the luminous presence of a stone, smooth<br \/>\ncircular<br \/>\nthe sea wash him constantly<!--more--><b>Crying<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I remember well, yes, well<br \/>\nwhen I was sitting there, alone<br \/>\nin the toilet<br \/>\nAnd<br \/>\nI was crying<br \/>\nand it was the 11th of cold December<\/p>\n<p>It is difficult for me to cry in public<\/p>\n<p>I said, Guard<br \/>\n    toilet here!<br \/>\n       Come and take me, guard<\/p>\n<p>It was the 11th of a cold December<\/p>\n<p>This time the guard came a bit faster<br \/>\nas if he somehow knew<br \/>\nthat the flowing of tears and bursts of sobbing would disgrace me<\/p>\n<p>When he opened the door I was already running<br \/>\nThe guard shouted after me<br \/>\n   Run, run before you piss your pants<br \/>\n   Allah willing, you will not disgrace yourself<\/p>\n<p>I said: <br \/>\n      There is no power<br \/>\n      There is neither might nor strength but in God!<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday they took away our friend<br \/>\n      and killed him<br \/>\nIt is very difficult for me to cry in public<\/p>\n<p>Then I was sitting alone in the toilet<br \/>\nand<\/p>\n<p>I was crying<\/p>\n<p>It was the 11th of cold December<br \/>\nI remember well, yes, well<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reza Baraheni is a fomer Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Tehran, also former President of Canadian PEN. Below is a few poems form a book of poetry he published in English in 1976, God&#8217;s Shadow: Prison Poems is a collection of poems based on a period of 102 days spent in <a href='https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/exiled-poet-reza-baraheni\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":550,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/550"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}