“…We did not know as we tried to conjure calm,
and still the cacophony with our silences,
we did not know as we tried to reflect the charm
of that bright place in our spotted selves,
how much we could disturb, how much perturb
those extinguished hearts – It’s true.
We did not realise what smiles could do.
And so in that hellish misery, we smiled:
at the woman with legs beaten black and blue,
and the insane one with frozen eyes,
and the sick one with her yellow skin,
and the ones who seemed neither men nor women,
and the old ones in the embrace of death,
and the starved ones with shaven heads,
those with scratched cheeks, and others,
who had lost their hopes with their teeth,
and the young with yellow pus-filled wounds
who smelled of rot that would make you shudder…
For in that place of tribulation, a smile was enough
to evoke the fragrance of green lawns, of red geranium;
a single word recalling the sanctity of humankind
gathered together the broken hearts and made them whole…”
(Excerpt from No Boundaries by Mahvash Sabet)
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Teacher and poet Mahvash Sabet is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence in Evin prison, Tehran. She is one of a group of seven Baha’i leaders known as the “Yaran-i-Iran” – “Friends of Iran” – who have been detained since 2008 for their faith and activities related to running the affairs of the Bahá’í community in Iran. Mahvash Sabet began writing poetry in prison, and a collection of her poetry entitled Prison Poems was published in English translation on 1 April 2013.
PEN International is calling on the Iranian authorities to release Mahvash Sabet and all other writers imprisoned in Iran solely for exercising their right to legitimate freedom of expression.
To take more action for Mahvash Sabet visit here
To read more about, and take action for, all of the cases highlighted by PEN International on the Day of the Imprisoned Writer visit here