Mehdi Akhavān-Sāles, or Akhavān-Sāless (; 1 March 1929 in Mashhad, Iran – 26 August 1990 in Tehran, Iran), pen name Mim. Omid () was a prominent modern Iranian poet. He is one of the pioneers of Free Verse (New Style Poetry) in the Persian language.
Biography
Mehdi Akhavan Sales was born on 1 March 1929, in Mashhad, Khorasan province. His father, Ali, was originally from Fahraj in Yazd province, he was an apothecary (ʿaṭṭār), and his mother, Maryam, was a native of Khorasan. Akhavan Sales had to give up an interest in music to appease his father. He finished his elementary education in Mashhad and studied welding in the city's Technical School (honarestān) in 1941.
Akhavan’s second poetry collection named Zemestān (Winter) was published in 1956.
As Abdolali Dastgheib, literary critic writer puts it: Mehdi Akhavan-Sales benefitted from ancient treasures of Persian literature and was able to skillfully combine the old, traditional style with modern or even, everyday words to create some of the best works of Iranian poetry. His later works have a rich style and are a symbolic portrait of political and social atmosphere of the time. For example, his famous poem ‘Winter (Zemestān زمستان, 1956)’ which was written shortly following the coup against Iranian popular and liberal prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, and the suppression of freedom by the Shah’s government, shows his despair and loss of hope. In this poem, even close friends are not extending hands to each other or talking as “the cold is severely bitter”.