Vazir Fathi ( Rahyaab)

A Brief Personal History and poem

Translated from Farsi by: Ali Atash.

*****

 Vazir Fathi ( Rahyaab) was born in April 1963. He was a political prisoner during “the Decade of Sixties”- 1980’s- and is a survivor of the massacre of “sixty seven”. He was arrested in February of 1983 and was formally released in July of 1992.Vazir started writing poetry in the “Eveen ” prison in 1986 and he wrote his first poem in the solitary cell.

 The experience of the struggles, imprisonments, tortures, hangings, executions and resistance of those years and specially the experience of the horrible massacre of his comrades in the year of 67 left an indelible and lasting effect on his poetry. the manifestations of this are visibly demonstrated in all his work. Vazir, even after his release from prison, maintained a direct presence in the industrial areas populated by workers. He worked along side of workers, technicians and engineers. By participating in their struggles, he shared in their successes and defeats, happiness and misery and was able to experience true workers poetry and literature in their authentic format. He has integrated and reflected this experience in his poems.

Rahyaab’s  poems were not published before 2008, with one or two exceptions that got him in trouble with the Ministry of Information. During this period, some of his poems were ,occasionally, circulated in closed circles. In 2008, he adopted the pen name “Rahyaab” on the recommendation of some friends and to facilitate wide access to his work. Consequently, he began publishing some of his poems on the internet abroad and received broad notice and acceptance.

Vazir Fathi, after 16 years of dealing with the tight control of the Islamic Republic and bearing the difficulties of recurrent arrests and interrogations and living under the Sword of Damocles, finally in August 2010 opted to enter on the path of immigration and sough political asylum in Turkey. His family, being  placed on the list of those restricted from leaving the country and undergoing a lot of legal harassment by the Ministries of Information and Investigation for 9 months, was finally able to join him there.

Rahyaab’s poetry was regularly and on related occasions published in various places and received wide attention from various readers; as their comments and emails reflected.  Moreover, an extensive review on the poem ” darafsh ma” by M. Hejri  was published on some Internet sites. This review represents a valuable attempt to appreciate this poem: as well, it is an analysis of the contents and concepts contained in it which reveals the literary orientation and viewpoint of the poet.

Aside from his literary work, Vazir Fathi has published numerous political writings about the conditions and massacre of political prisoners in Iran.

“Camomile in the Desert” is his collection of poems that is now available in print under his name. It contains some of his newest poems, as well as new-style and old forms of poetry such as Lyrics, Couplets and Quatrains.  As well, he conducted a radio interview with Mr. Michael Slate from Radio KPfK, in September 2012, reviewing the infamous massacre of political prisoners of 1988 in Iran. The link for this interview is attached below:

Link to poem :                                                      http://hopoi.org/commune.html