Ahmad Shamlou

contemporary Iranian poet, was noted mostly for his political poems. He often tried to attract attention to himself by generating controversy or being perverse. This practice eventually backfired on him and caused him to not being taken as a serious personality by many Iranian 
His fans are typically ardent and even somewhat cultish about him. They are typically fans of his persona more so than they are fans of his poetry. For this reason, some people predict that after the passing of the current generation of his cultish fans, Shamlou as a poet will fade into oblivion.

Shamlou was a professed Marxist even after the fall of the Iron Curtain. He died in a Tehran  hospital in 2000 at the age of 75.