Mohammad Ali Bagherzadeh (Vartan)
My childhood unfolded among trees.
In a house filled with the sound of birds, the scent of plants, and shifting shadows of branches where light filtered through and rested on my face.
I grew up in Iran — a land rich in roots, contrasts, and quiet hardships.
I was the first child of the family.
I preferred writing to speaking.
Words on paper gave me time to breathe;
just as wood would later become my safest refuge.
I drew constantly — tree trunks, branches, textures, and forms.
I loved a single pencil more than twelve colors.
I chose solitude over crowds, and my attention was always drawn to the smallest details of life.
He stood;
at the feet of all the times he had lost,
with weary hands of a clock.
I stood too (I stood),
at the feet of my timbers,
at the feet of my beams,
and set myself to work,
like fastening blades to stone.
I put my hands to something,
I struck something else,
and I wasn’t paying attention
that nails can pierce me,
and the longer the nails,
the deeper the wounds,
and the cut of dull saws hurts more,
even if your skin is as thick as sequoias…!
I put glue on my wound,
poured the excess glue back into its can,
the excess words into my heart.
I set the hammer aside,
moved the nails a little away—
like certain words,
certain people, and certain lessons
that only occupy the surface:
the surface of poems,
the surface of minds.
And I stood;
alone,
alone,
alone,
beside a statue paired with clamps,
and stared at the wall opposite,
like a dead body amid wars.
…
The corpse of the clock was still standing,
at the feet of my words,
at the feet of its moments.
The corpse of me was standing too,
among my timbers,
between my planks.
…
"Vartan"
ایستاد؛
پای تمام زمانهایی که از دست داده بود
با عقربهایی خسته
من هم ایستادم (ایستادم)
پای چوبهام
پای چوبه هام
و خودم را به کار بستم
مثل بستن تیغه ها به سنگ
دست به کار چیزی شدم
چیز دیگری را کوبیدم
و حواسم نبود
میخ ها می توانند سوراخم کنند
و هر چه میخ ها بلندتر
زخم ها عمیق تر
و برش ارّه های کُند دردش بیشتر
حتا اگر پوستت به کلفتی سکویاها باشد…!
چسبی را به زخمم زدم
چسب اضافه را در گالنش ریختم
حرف اضافه را در دلم
چکش را کنار گذاشتم
میخ ها را کمی کنارتر
مثل بعضی حرفها
بعضی آدمها و درسها
که فقط سطح را اشغال میکنند
سطح شعر ها
سطح مغزها
و ایستادم
تنها
تنها
تنها
کنار مجسمه ای جفتِ گیره ها
و به دیوار روبرو خیره شدم
مثل مُرده ای لای جنگ ها
…
جنازه ی ساعت هنوز ایستاده بود
پای حرفهام
پای لحظه هاش
جنازه ی من هم ایستاده بود
لای چوبهام
بین تخته هام
…
“وارطان”
Sorrows are eating me from within;
like termites in wood,
like miners in a mountain.
And each day I grow more hollow,
more alone,
and a little closer to death…
“Vartan”
غمها دارند مرا از درون میخورند؛
همچون موریانه هایی در چوب
همچون معدنچیانی در کوه
و من هر روز توخالی تر می شوم
تنها تر می شوم
و به مرگ اندکی نزدیکتر …
“وارطان”
The Beginning
I was the first child of the family.
I preferred writing to speaking.
Words on paper gave me time to breathe;
just as wood would later become my safest refuge.
I drew constantly — tree trunks, branches, textures, and forms.
I loved a single pencil more than twelve colors.
I chose solitude over crowds, and my attention was always drawn to the smallest details of life.
As a teenager, I followed the expected path into mathematics and physics,
yet something deeper inside me longed to build.
I was drawn to difficulty, to earning things the hard way,
to the strength that comes only after endurance.
Like the heroes of the animations I watched as a child —
they suffered, they lost, they rebuilt, and they became stronger.
The Discovery
Everything changed during the summer before my final year of high school.
I entered a woodcarving workshop.
The first strike of the chisel, the first scent of wood —
it felt as though I had been waiting for that moment all my life.
Wood was never just a material to me.
I understood the tree — its grains, its knots, its scars.
In the silence of the workshop, without words, I created.
After only a few months, my hands moved like those of someone with years of experience.
School drifted away; wood came closer.
The Dedication
I built a small workshop in the boiler room of our home.
I took loans, hired my master privately, and devoted everything I had to learning.
Forms, volumes, floral curves — they emerged from the wood as if they had always been there, waiting to be released.
My first fully three-dimensional sculpture took twenty-seven uninterrupted hours to complete — a mermaid carved from yew wood.
Exhausted, yet more alive than ever.
The Challenges
The university entrance exam never happened.
An accident in the water, a brush with death,
and a body that refused to move for weeks.
But my path did not stop.
In Iran, an artist’s life is never simple.
Yet my destiny had already been carved into the grain of wood.
Despite every hardship, I stayed.
Because I love difficulty.
I love making.
I love wood.
And this story is still being carved…