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New Directions Poetry Pamphlet #12
Fifteen Iraqi Poets
Fifteen Iraqi Poets compiles fifteen poems, each written by a different, prominent twentieth-century Iraqi poet. Selected, with commentary, by award-winning Iraqi-American poet, Dunya Mikhail, this little anthology is the perfect introduction to a glorious literature that traces its roots back to ancient Sumer — a poetry written by those who have lived through a state of continuous wars and massacres, their laments often opening with a plea to their destroyed homeland, “O Iraq.”
- GenresPoetryMiddle East
48 pages, Paperback
First published November 26, 2013
1 person is currently reading
219 people want to read
About the author
Dunya Mikhail
19 books130 followersDunya Mikhail is an Iraqi American poet and writer. She is the author of the poetry collections The War Works Hard, shortlisted for the International Griffon Poetry Prize, Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea (winner of the Arab American Book Award), The Iraqi Nights, winner of the Poetry Magazine Translation Award, and In Her Feminine Sign, chosen as one of the ten best poetry books of 2019 by The New York Public Library.
Her nonfiction book The Beekeeper was a finalist for the National Book Award, and her debut novel, The Bird Tattoo, was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
Mikhail is a laureate of the UNESCO Sharja Prize for Arab Culture and has received the UN Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing, as well as fellowships from the United States Artists, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Kresge Foundation.
She currently teaches Arabic and poetry at Oakland University in Michigan.
Her nonfiction book The Beekeeper was a finalist for the National Book Award, and her debut novel, The Bird Tattoo, was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
Mikhail is a laureate of the UNESCO Sharja Prize for Arab Culture and has received the UN Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing, as well as fellowships from the United States Artists, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Kresge Foundation.
She currently teaches Arabic and poetry at Oakland University in Michigan.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 21, 2017
This book presents one poem each written by 15 Iraqi poets, along with brief bios/outlines of accomplishments and struggles for each poet, written by the editor, Ms. Mikhail. I thought some of these poems were astonishingly powerful, which is why I rated the book so highly, and the commentary certainly will lead the reader to seek out more work by these poets.
Unfortunately, given the grim political situation in Iraq, which has been ongoing for years - at least since the time of the British mandate, the poems are often sorrowful. However, the reader will find insights nonetheless - especially when reading the accompanying essays on each poet; despite hardship, exile, war, the paranoia of living in a war zone, etc., Iraq is a country that at least once had an intelligentsia, wherein developments in the arts were followed, there were schools of poets, evolving styles and disputes over poetic rules and forms. There was more attention paid to poetry, it seems, than in many other countries, perhaps because poetry traditionally enjoys great respect in the Arab world. The book, unsurprisingly, leaves one with a sense of desolation - as to what once was, before the country was ripped apart - and what the country is now, and how the ongoing conflicts in Iraq have destroyed lives, families, and the country as a whole, and just how difficult it will be to put Iraq back together again. Many of the poems contain references to the devastation - and the bios often give stories of poets that are forced to wander because of having gotten into trouble with one ruler or another, or because they were in the wrong faction, or the wrong place at the wrong time. The tragedy of Iraq and Syria is that these once were at least briefly progressive countries - which were trying to follow a modernizing, Western-oriented policy, such that for example females were encouraged to attend school, unlike in some other Islamic countries, but that Western orientation vanished with the conflicts in each country and the rise of dictators. Instability and warfare has enveloped the region for many years, until by now Iraq is engulfed in war, and Syria has dissolved into factions fighting each other - with a number of foreign powers involved backing factions that may unfortunately be just as extremist as ISIS. The sad thing is that these countries, had they not fallen into unending cycles of violence/vengeance, contained a burgeoning educated middle class that could have been a stabilizing influence, instead the march to independence since the end of Turkish (Ottoman) rule in these areas, has been marked by violence, endless coups, military takeovers, and so forth. This 2013 book gives a glimpse into that seemingly lost world of art and literature in Iraq - and the stories of the poets, often subject to the violence, often doomed to exile. This book is a welcome counter-balance to the usual narrative of what happened in Iraq, since the first gulf war and thereafter. The Iraqis were dragged into one war after another - there has been no long-lasting peace in Iraq for about 100 years.
Unfortunately, given the grim political situation in Iraq, which has been ongoing for years - at least since the time of the British mandate, the poems are often sorrowful. However, the reader will find insights nonetheless - especially when reading the accompanying essays on each poet; despite hardship, exile, war, the paranoia of living in a war zone, etc., Iraq is a country that at least once had an intelligentsia, wherein developments in the arts were followed, there were schools of poets, evolving styles and disputes over poetic rules and forms. There was more attention paid to poetry, it seems, than in many other countries, perhaps because poetry traditionally enjoys great respect in the Arab world. The book, unsurprisingly, leaves one with a sense of desolation - as to what once was, before the country was ripped apart - and what the country is now, and how the ongoing conflicts in Iraq have destroyed lives, families, and the country as a whole, and just how difficult it will be to put Iraq back together again. Many of the poems contain references to the devastation - and the bios often give stories of poets that are forced to wander because of having gotten into trouble with one ruler or another, or because they were in the wrong faction, or the wrong place at the wrong time. The tragedy of Iraq and Syria is that these once were at least briefly progressive countries - which were trying to follow a modernizing, Western-oriented policy, such that for example females were encouraged to attend school, unlike in some other Islamic countries, but that Western orientation vanished with the conflicts in each country and the rise of dictators. Instability and warfare has enveloped the region for many years, until by now Iraq is engulfed in war, and Syria has dissolved into factions fighting each other - with a number of foreign powers involved backing factions that may unfortunately be just as extremist as ISIS. The sad thing is that these countries, had they not fallen into unending cycles of violence/vengeance, contained a burgeoning educated middle class that could have been a stabilizing influence, instead the march to independence since the end of Turkish (Ottoman) rule in these areas, has been marked by violence, endless coups, military takeovers, and so forth. This 2013 book gives a glimpse into that seemingly lost world of art and literature in Iraq - and the stories of the poets, often subject to the violence, often doomed to exile. This book is a welcome counter-balance to the usual narrative of what happened in Iraq, since the first gulf war and thereafter. The Iraqis were dragged into one war after another - there has been no long-lasting peace in Iraq for about 100 years.
December 26, 2014
Happy National Poetry Month, if you live in the USA. I have a pile of poetry books I'm hoping to read but this was my first pick. I hadn't ever read any poems from Iraqi poets, and for only fifteen poems, this was a fantastic volume. Each poem is translated into English, revised for the volume, and is followed by a biography of the poet along with some explanation or context for the poem.
Since the poets are living or from the 20th century, absolutely everyone has lived in an Iraq of turmoil. At least half of the poets spent large chunks of adulthood in another country. The poets range from Kurdish to Jewish backgrounds and are both male and female, so this is a volume of great diversity.
My two favorites come from female poets. The first is "New Year" by Nazik Al-Malaika. It pleads with the New Year not to bother, because in a time of conflict, death isn't solitary and life isn't regular. It can be read in its entirety at PoemHunter.com. The other favorite is "Like Hypatia in Ancient Times" by Siham Jabbar. One translation is here, but I'm partial to the version in this volume.
Since the poets are living or from the 20th century, absolutely everyone has lived in an Iraq of turmoil. At least half of the poets spent large chunks of adulthood in another country. The poets range from Kurdish to Jewish backgrounds and are both male and female, so this is a volume of great diversity.
My two favorites come from female poets. The first is "New Year" by Nazik Al-Malaika. It pleads with the New Year not to bother, because in a time of conflict, death isn't solitary and life isn't regular. It can be read in its entirety at PoemHunter.com. The other favorite is "Like Hypatia in Ancient Times" by Siham Jabbar. One translation is here, but I'm partial to the version in this volume.
September 8, 2021
Beautiful collection of poetry. Will read and reread over and over again.
August 17, 2017
Wonderfully translated collection of strong work by 15 classical and contemporary Iraqi poets. Dunya includes biographical details about each of the poets included, situating their work and often including little gems from her own conversations and personal knowledge of them. This collection is truly a treasure and I wish it were longer !!
June 5, 2016
I really appreciated the biographical prose that accompanied these poems! At times they were more enlightening, and mouth watering than the poems themselves. It was nice to have history paired with the poetry, which helped me to understand the culture that these poems were speaking to.
I think that this collection was very well curated with all of the right intentions. There were lines in this were I found mouth wide open muttering profanities that proclaimed its brilliance.
This was really quite a magnificent anthology.
I think that this collection was very well curated with all of the right intentions. There were lines in this were I found mouth wide open muttering profanities that proclaimed its brilliance.
This was really quite a magnificent anthology.
January 27, 2018
Fifteen Iraqi Poets
by Mark Chmiel
So we need poets to challenge received notions, tell us what we don’t know, ask the questions we can’t answer, and wake us up to both doom and Utopia.
— Translator and essayist Eliot Weinberger
Over the decades, the United States has caused extreme damage in Vietnam, Nicaragua, and Iraq. In each of these nations, the populace esteems poetry in a way that U.S. citizens could scarcely imagine. While in a Chinese prison, Ho Chi Minh wrote poetry, while Minister of Culture Ernesto Cardenal and his associate Daisy Zamora sponsored poetry workshops all over the country after the revolutionary triumph.
Dunya Mikhail, author of The War Works Hard, has edited a short and powerful collection of poems, Fifteen Iraqi Poets, published by New Directions, famous for its promotion of international modernism. The collection proceeds chronologically from Badr Shakir al-Sayyab (born in 1926) to Siham Jabbar (born in 1963). Mikhail acknowledged, “It was a nearly impossible task trying to pick only fifteen grains of sand from a shimmering desert.”
In her preface, she mentions the subversive free verse movement and experiments in prose poems which began in Iraq in the 1940s. These constituted an unprecedented transgression of the principles of classical Arabic poetry. Mikhail also links this recent Iraqi poetry to ancient Sumerian poetry: “The words from Sumer in southern Iraq were our first cries of poetry, etched in a cuneiform script onto clay tablets, the lines unfolding in one long prose poem without rhymes but with an ‘inner rhythm.’ The texts are shaped by a narrative, but the repetition of lines and the intensity of the images are unmistakably lyrical. Most of the narratives are broken into fragments, though it is often impossible to discern if the fragmentation is intentional or due to missing or crumbling tablets.”
Mikhail provides interesting background on each of the fifteen poets. Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab translated Louis Aragon, Nazim Hikmet, and T.S. Eliot into Arabic. In addition to being one of the pioneers of free verse, Nazik Al-Malaika was a strong proponent of women’s rights (she and her husband founded the University of Basra). Yousif Al-Sa’igh was raised a Christian, then converted to Islam, after which he converted to Marxism, before finally throwing his lot in with the Baath party. Sargon Boulus translated Ho Chi Minh’s poetry into Arabic after he saw a large anti-Vietnam war protest in San Francisco. Taleb Abd Al-Aziz lost his brother in the Iran-Iraq War, and about his poem “My Brother’s War,” he noted, “I wrote the poem in fifteen minutes but with burning tears.”
The following poem, “Separation” is by the Iraqi Kurd Sherko Bekas, who lived as an exile in Sweden for a number of years.
If they deprive my poems
of flowers
one of my seasons will die.
If they deprive my poems
of my beloved
two of my seasons will die.
If they deprive my poems
of bread
three of my seasons will die.
If they deprive my poems
of freedom
my whole year will die
as will I.
Reading these poets, I thought of a friend of mine, Fatima Rhodes, who has recently composed poems marked by intense compassion and searing anger. I sense in her and others among us that, indeed, poetry is something elemental, vital, as necessary as flowers, beloveds, bread, and freedom.
Past and present under the various forms of tyranny dominating their country, Iraqi poets have risked their lives in pursuing their art. Many fled to other lands; others stayed and tried to manage somehow, through the years of wars, sanctions, and chaos. Ra’ad Abdul Qadir was one of those who remained in Iraq. He died young at 50. His widow gave to his friends a collection of the writings he’d left behind. They discovered 11 volumes of unpublished poems.
by Mark Chmiel
So we need poets to challenge received notions, tell us what we don’t know, ask the questions we can’t answer, and wake us up to both doom and Utopia.
— Translator and essayist Eliot Weinberger
Over the decades, the United States has caused extreme damage in Vietnam, Nicaragua, and Iraq. In each of these nations, the populace esteems poetry in a way that U.S. citizens could scarcely imagine. While in a Chinese prison, Ho Chi Minh wrote poetry, while Minister of Culture Ernesto Cardenal and his associate Daisy Zamora sponsored poetry workshops all over the country after the revolutionary triumph.
Dunya Mikhail, author of The War Works Hard, has edited a short and powerful collection of poems, Fifteen Iraqi Poets, published by New Directions, famous for its promotion of international modernism. The collection proceeds chronologically from Badr Shakir al-Sayyab (born in 1926) to Siham Jabbar (born in 1963). Mikhail acknowledged, “It was a nearly impossible task trying to pick only fifteen grains of sand from a shimmering desert.”
In her preface, she mentions the subversive free verse movement and experiments in prose poems which began in Iraq in the 1940s. These constituted an unprecedented transgression of the principles of classical Arabic poetry. Mikhail also links this recent Iraqi poetry to ancient Sumerian poetry: “The words from Sumer in southern Iraq were our first cries of poetry, etched in a cuneiform script onto clay tablets, the lines unfolding in one long prose poem without rhymes but with an ‘inner rhythm.’ The texts are shaped by a narrative, but the repetition of lines and the intensity of the images are unmistakably lyrical. Most of the narratives are broken into fragments, though it is often impossible to discern if the fragmentation is intentional or due to missing or crumbling tablets.”
Mikhail provides interesting background on each of the fifteen poets. Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab translated Louis Aragon, Nazim Hikmet, and T.S. Eliot into Arabic. In addition to being one of the pioneers of free verse, Nazik Al-Malaika was a strong proponent of women’s rights (she and her husband founded the University of Basra). Yousif Al-Sa’igh was raised a Christian, then converted to Islam, after which he converted to Marxism, before finally throwing his lot in with the Baath party. Sargon Boulus translated Ho Chi Minh’s poetry into Arabic after he saw a large anti-Vietnam war protest in San Francisco. Taleb Abd Al-Aziz lost his brother in the Iran-Iraq War, and about his poem “My Brother’s War,” he noted, “I wrote the poem in fifteen minutes but with burning tears.”
The following poem, “Separation” is by the Iraqi Kurd Sherko Bekas, who lived as an exile in Sweden for a number of years.
If they deprive my poems
of flowers
one of my seasons will die.
If they deprive my poems
of my beloved
two of my seasons will die.
If they deprive my poems
of bread
three of my seasons will die.
If they deprive my poems
of freedom
my whole year will die
as will I.
Reading these poets, I thought of a friend of mine, Fatima Rhodes, who has recently composed poems marked by intense compassion and searing anger. I sense in her and others among us that, indeed, poetry is something elemental, vital, as necessary as flowers, beloveds, bread, and freedom.
Past and present under the various forms of tyranny dominating their country, Iraqi poets have risked their lives in pursuing their art. Many fled to other lands; others stayed and tried to manage somehow, through the years of wars, sanctions, and chaos. Ra’ad Abdul Qadir was one of those who remained in Iraq. He died young at 50. His widow gave to his friends a collection of the writings he’d left behind. They discovered 11 volumes of unpublished poems.
January 28, 2021
This short collection features one poem from fifteen different Iraqi poets. The clue being in the title. Each one is followed by a short biography/guide to the poet and their work. It is, therefore, a fine introduction to modern Iraqi poetry.
It was one of the books bought for me on my 50th Birthday that had listened to me when I talked about how I was trying to read poetry from all over the world and find things that would give me new insights. And this is a fine collection for that.
Edited by Dunya Mikhail, each poem is translated. Mostly from Arabic but one from Kurdish and one from Hebrew. There is an elegiac, melancholy air to many - all? - of them, but the recent history of Iraq perhaps does not lend itself to poems of joy. I assume there are some though because, obviously, this is just a selection.
I found Badr Shakir al-Sayyab's 'Rain Song'; Taleb Abd Al-Aziz's 'My Brother's War'; Ronny Sameck's 'Jasmine: Poem on Sandpaper'and Nazik Al-Malika's 'New Year' particularly good, but the whole collection is a superb read.
The collection as a whole does a fine job of making you want to read more from each of the poets featured, although how much of it is available in English I am about to find out. I fear not a lot.
It was one of the books bought for me on my 50th Birthday that had listened to me when I talked about how I was trying to read poetry from all over the world and find things that would give me new insights. And this is a fine collection for that.
Edited by Dunya Mikhail, each poem is translated. Mostly from Arabic but one from Kurdish and one from Hebrew. There is an elegiac, melancholy air to many - all? - of them, but the recent history of Iraq perhaps does not lend itself to poems of joy. I assume there are some though because, obviously, this is just a selection.
I found Badr Shakir al-Sayyab's 'Rain Song'; Taleb Abd Al-Aziz's 'My Brother's War'; Ronny Sameck's 'Jasmine: Poem on Sandpaper'and Nazik Al-Malika's 'New Year' particularly good, but the whole collection is a superb read.
The collection as a whole does a fine job of making you want to read more from each of the poets featured, although how much of it is available in English I am about to find out. I fear not a lot.
November 26, 2023
A great one-sit reading. Solid coverage and extremely helpful prefatory and biographical material. Better yet, it's made me want to read more Taleb Abd al-Aziz and Siham Jibbar. A solid poetry mixtape.
May 7, 2019
Unexpected and irrevocably tempting, paired with critical insight.
November 25, 2014
I'm fairly picky about poetry, but I enjoyed this one. The repetitive imagery, sense of ambiguity, and personification contribute to its ability to move the reader. I couldn't pick a favorite, but the one I typed up below should give you a good sense of the book as a whole.
"God's Palm Tree" by Hasab Al-Sheikh Ja'Afar (translated from the Arabic by Rebecca Carol Johnson and Dunya Mikhail.
My old robe on you waves in the north
Christ-like, and the plain taste of your dates
taken by the ravens and the wind heavy with dust,
scatter over it from sunrise to evening,
its shadow a banner of defeat.
Where are the children
climbing like birds to the sky?
Before our arms turned rigid, scorched by the midday heat
we would extend to you our little hands
in a plea for the world to rain gifts
and to taste, before the birds come, dates
shining like mirrors, upon a luxurious bed of grass
in your bright shade covered with morning dew.
O god's only palm tree in the wind,
every night you fill my long solitude with tears
so I rise, I come to you...but I only embrace the tall shade, I only touch the dust.
As alone as your trunk, a shadow bruned by absence,
I dry out like a pale star or a twig.
"O palm tree in the wind," I used to say, "O my desiring heart,
after a year or more I will return to her with
my own stumbling steps, for everything I lost remains in her
hands.
If I return what would remain of you? In your body?"
The summer nights were heavy with singing your heavy branches in the wind.
And I would appear with my eyes closed,
one of your buds a heaven of coiled leaves, shining in green,
I wake up in a rush before the birds, and in my hands the water of the summer night to pour upon you.
So if I come what would remain of you but ashes
in our deserted hut, and the soughing wind in the ravine that sweeps my papers away. Was it all in vain my longing?
Oh palm tree in the wind, our eyes are strained with waiting,
we watch the days and count the ripened fruit
as the sun drop[s and the rain falls on you
the shining dates fill our little hands like candles.
So what if I return what would remain of you? And what would remain
of me?
The children grew up and so did the playful world, but I used to say, "O palm tree in the wind: O my eager heart...
So if I return what would remain of you? What would
remain in your body.
It reminded me of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. I also like that for each poem, a brief author biography and cultural context are given. I read each poem at least twice, one before reading the biography and once after
"God's Palm Tree" by Hasab Al-Sheikh Ja'Afar (translated from the Arabic by Rebecca Carol Johnson and Dunya Mikhail.
My old robe on you waves in the north
Christ-like, and the plain taste of your dates
taken by the ravens and the wind heavy with dust,
scatter over it from sunrise to evening,
its shadow a banner of defeat.
Where are the children
climbing like birds to the sky?
Before our arms turned rigid, scorched by the midday heat
we would extend to you our little hands
in a plea for the world to rain gifts
and to taste, before the birds come, dates
shining like mirrors, upon a luxurious bed of grass
in your bright shade covered with morning dew.
O god's only palm tree in the wind,
every night you fill my long solitude with tears
so I rise, I come to you...but I only embrace the tall shade, I only touch the dust.
As alone as your trunk, a shadow bruned by absence,
I dry out like a pale star or a twig.
"O palm tree in the wind," I used to say, "O my desiring heart,
after a year or more I will return to her with
my own stumbling steps, for everything I lost remains in her
hands.
If I return what would remain of you? In your body?"
The summer nights were heavy with singing your heavy branches in the wind.
And I would appear with my eyes closed,
one of your buds a heaven of coiled leaves, shining in green,
I wake up in a rush before the birds, and in my hands the water of the summer night to pour upon you.
So if I come what would remain of you but ashes
in our deserted hut, and the soughing wind in the ravine that sweeps my papers away. Was it all in vain my longing?
Oh palm tree in the wind, our eyes are strained with waiting,
we watch the days and count the ripened fruit
as the sun drop[s and the rain falls on you
the shining dates fill our little hands like candles.
So what if I return what would remain of you? And what would remain
of me?
The children grew up and so did the playful world, but I used to say, "O palm tree in the wind: O my eager heart...
So if I return what would remain of you? What would
remain in your body.
It reminded me of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. I also like that for each poem, a brief author biography and cultural context are given. I read each poem at least twice, one before reading the biography and once after
July 23, 2017
Beautiful collection, albeit a bit small, of work together with information about each poet. Some beautiful poetry here, this book would serve as an excellent introduction to poets that could otherwise ne easily missed because of a governments silly politics.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews