Sally Arango Renata says she wanted to do “something that counts.”

Like many others, she wanted to contribute to society in a meaningful way. Ms. Renata’s desire went beyond fulfilling the Baha'i requirement to serve humanity, or, as she puts it, “to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.”


Sally Arango Renata She decided to serve the way she knows best -- through the written word. Feeling the pain of imprisoned Iranian Baha'is after reading Olya's Story, by Olya Roohizadegan, Ms. Renata, a published writer and poet, wrote the poem “The Prisoner” (see below).

“It has become clear to me,” says Ms. Renata, who also is a folk artist and art teacher, “that the arts, including writing, can reach into places where people can’t go. They can awaken hearts, increase knowledge, bond cultures and appeal to the commonality within us all.”

Olya’s Story, written by a Baha'i who was imprisoned in Iran, is “more than a testimony to the Baha'i in Iran who have suffered for our Faith," says Ms. Renata, who lives in Surfside Beach. S.C., and has been a Baha'i for 40 years. “The book is a story of courage, a lesson to all of us who have freedom.

“When I finished the book,” she says, “I felt bonded to families I have never met and compelled to do what the Baha'is in Iran can't do -- express my true beliefs and feelings in my poems without fear of persecution.”

Ms. Renata says she considers herself a “citizen of the world. I really feel the tragedies of others. It’s like it’s happening to my own family.”

She has had her own pain to contend with. After raising six children and working for many years in the field of affirmative action, she found herself flat on her back for a year with fibromyalgia, from which she still suffers.

“So I started exploring inside myself,” she says. Ms. Renata started doing folk art and has had several exhibits. She also took up writing and has won a number of awards for her works, including being named a Poetry Fellow by the South Carolina Arts Commission.

“The Prison”
(For Baha’i Sisters in Iran)

We have freedom here,
which seems capricious
as you sleep on cold
damp cement.

Perfumed sage wafts
through my unknowing rooms
as you endure foul
crusted toilets, failing bodies,
the scent of fear.

I foster angst,
tinker in empty places,
while you suppress
tears with smiles,
fear, with the chanting
of sweet verses
waiting for the call
of your name – or hers,
which brings even more pain.

What was I doing the day
the child Mona was hung,
the women, their fathers,
their mothers...

What was my day, months ago
when they stole more of my
sisters, still children,

for the sin of service,
for not hiding their faith
under a chador.

From the blur of worlds-
yours and mine, this
and the next, now and then,
comes the phoenix of love,
the joining of sisters.
I weep for wasted time.