The War Works Hard

by Dunya Mikhail, Saadi S. Simawe, Elizabeth Winslow

Mikhail’s poetic vision transcends cultural and linguistic boundaries with liberating compassion. Revolutionary poetry by an exiled Iraqi woman. Winner of a 2004 PEN Translation Fund Award. "Yesterday I lost a country," Dunya Mikhail writes in The War Works Hard , a revolutionary work by an exiled Iraqi poether first to appear in English. Amidst the ongoing atrocities in Iraq, here is an important new voice that rescues the human spirit from the ruins, unmasking the official glorification of war with telegraphic lexical austerity. Embracing literary traditions from ancient Mesopotamian mythology to Biblical and Qur'anic parables to Western modernism, Mikhail's poetic vision transcends cultural and linguistic boundaries with liberating compassion.

Genres: Poetry, Middle East, War, 21st Century, Contemporary, Historical, Literature

96 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2005

About the author

Dunya 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.

Reviews

[Edita · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is all that remains:
a handful of meaningless words
engraved on the walls.
We read so absent-mindedly,
eventually we forget
how, in the short lull
between two wars,
we became so old.
*
I want it.
I want that moment
(forever out of reach)
in the picture which I know
from every angle:
the circular moment of sky.
Imagine, […]
if one of us drops out of the picture
and leaves the album full
of loneliness,
*
I need a sky wider than longing,
[…]
The days are no longer enough
to distinguish the missing.
I no longer see you
because I no longer dream.
I offer a tear to the rain
*
I don’t know how to add your absence to my life.
I don’t know how to subtract myself from it.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

You planted pomegranates and prisons
round, red and full.

I'd use the word 'duty' in context with a work like this, but so-called "Americans" don't know the meaning of the word. No, your country does not span the entirety of two continents, however much your colloquialisms imply otherwise. No, you are responsible for the poetry here, least so long as you want your precious capitalism and its military industrial complex steroids to remain in place. Yes, it's cute when your white girlfriend gets a tattoo in Arabic and terrorist when it shows up in a form much less amputated, but that's your genocide talking, not your logic. Yes, this review's going to be very US-centric cause in the introduction it's "a U.S.-backed military coup" and "the American war against Iraq" and "most sophisticated torture methods with tools imported from the West", the last admittedly iffy but come on. Where else are you going to find pregnant Lynndie England in poetic form, a final consecration of the possibility that, yes. Fertile white women hailing from the United States can torture too.

The introduction makes a big deal of calling Mikhail's work childlike, which I'd make a bigger fuss about it if A. I was Iraqi B. I spoke Arabic C. I had a larger stake in this matter than too much free time and too little ill-gotten awareness. My issue is not with the wealth of Iraqi creative works that is most assuredly out there, but how much of it is making its way to the parts of its current occupier that do not learn for the sheer sake of dominance. Don't tell me that this is not the proper way to look at the written word and all its extenuating context and consequence. Tell that to Dunya Mikhail. Tell that to the face of her and every other Iraqi artist and civilian and child, because if you're more than willing to use propaganda as a reason for wanting them all dead, your arguments against engaging with the propaganda of their own creation are a little weak. A little dull. You say your freedom is being infringed upon. I say you're scared shitless of the nightmares.

The New Year


1
There is a knock at the door.
How disappointing...
It is the New Year and not you.


2
I don't know who to add your absence to my life.
I don't know how to subtract myself from it
I don't know how to divide it
among the laboratory flasks.


3
Time stopped at twelve o'clock
and confused the watchmaker.
There were no flaws with the watch.
It was just a matter of the hands
which embraced and forgot the world.

You can respond to this poetry on an apolitical level when Iraq has been wiped from the face of the earth.

[Imen Benyoub · Rating 4 out of 5]

Behind the Glass

Today…
everything hangs on a bulletin board.
The scene ages in ruins
and the audience, divided by war,
reunites in the absence.
The curtain falls
on the day’s last shiver.
I flow wing-like behind a glass
that exchanges endless brokenness with me
for a universe of darkness
that splinters into the non-horizon.

[Maria]

"The poems were written, though not necessarily published, between 1985 and 2004, the darkest years in the history of Iraq. […] To many Iraqis, the American war against Iraq actually started on February 8, 1963 when the Baath junta, aided by U.S. intelligence from Kuwait, took over Baghdad."

[What does it mean]
To give back to your mother
on the occasion of death
a handful of bones
she had given to you
on the occasion of birth?

- from Bag of Bones

Yes, I did write in my letter
that I would wait for you forever.
I didn’t mean exactly “forever,”
I just included it for the rhythm.

[...]

I thank everyone I don’t love.
They don’t cause me heartache;
they don’t make me write long letters;
they don’t disturb my dreams.
I don’t wait for them anxiously;
I don’t read their horoscopes in magazines;
I don’t dial their numbers;
I don’t think of them.
I thank them a lot.
They don’t turn my life upside down.

- from Non-Military Statements

This is all that remains:
a handful of meaningless words
engraved on the walls.
We read so absent-mindedly,
eventually we forget
how, in the short lull
between two wars,
we became so old.

- from Between Two Wars

Here I am
coldly counting all the flowers
thrown on my corpse.

[...]

You who fill my skull with ashes, please
destroy my memories completely
(the bells ring endlessly).
The gravedigger is preoccupied…
And I, without concern, wipe away
the dust from my immortality
and gaze toward:
هنا ترقد على رجاء القيامة
مواطنة صالحة للنسيان.
Here in the hope of resurrection lies
a suitable citizen for oblivion.

- from A Tombstone

I don’t know how to add your absence to my life.
I don’t know how to subtract myself from it.
I don’t know how to divide it
among the laboratory flasks.

Time stopped at twelve o’clock
and confused the watchmaker.
There were no flaws with the watch.
It was just a matter of the hands
which embraced and forgot the world.

- from The New Year

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Non-Military Statement

1
Yes, I did write in my letter
that I would wait for you forever.
I didn't mean exactly "forever,"
I just included it for the rhythm.

2
No, he was not among them.
There were so many of them!
More than I've seen in my life
on any television screen.
And yet he was not among them.

3
It has no carvings
or arms.
It always remains there
in front of the television
this empty chair.

4
I dream of a magic wand
that changes my kisses to stars.
At night you can gaze on them
and know they are innumerable.

5
I thank everyone I don't love.
They don't cause me heartache;
they don't make me write long letters;
they don't disturb my dreams.
I don't wait for them anxiously;
I don't read their horoscopes in magazines;
I don't dial their numbers;
I don't think of them.
I thank them a lot.
They don't turn my life upside down.

6
I drew a door
to sit behind, ready
to open the door
as soon as you arrive.

[Adam Hasan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

I preferred The Iraqi Nights. Although this had some great poems they weren’t organized correctly and it didn’t tell a concise story.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stop your questioning, America,
and offer your hand to the tired
on the other shore.
Offer it without questions
or waiting lists.

Like all anthologies, some parts were better than others. I really enjoyed the first section, The War Works Hard, and thought it poignant and impressive, especially how the title poem changes one's perspective. The other two sections were a bit less memorable, except on the two or three poems where the author adopted a children's perspective (shoutout to the poem Pronouns).

Good introduction to the anthology by the editor as well, and gorgeous translation by Winston.

As a side note, this anthology calls to mind the one by Palestinian poet Maya Abu Al-Hayatt, You Can Be the Last Leaf. I liked Maya's better, if anyone would like to give it a try.

3/5.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

How magnificent the war is!
How eager
and efficient!
Early in the morning,
it wakes up the sirens
and dispatches ambulances
to various places,
swings corpses through the air,
rolls stretchers to the wounded,
summons rain
from the eyes of mothers,
digs into the earth
dislodging many things
from under the ruins . . .
Some are lifeless and glistening,
others are pale and still throbbing . . .
It produces the most questions
in the minds of children,
entertains the gods
by shooting fireworks and missiles
into the sky,
sows mines in the fields
and reaps punctures and blisters,
urges families to emigrate,
stands beside the clergymen
as they curse the devil
(poor devil, he remains
with one hand in the searing fire) . . .
The war continues working, day and night.
It inspires tyrants
to deliver long speeches,
awards medals to generals
and themes to poets.
It contributes to the industry
of artificial limbs,
provides food for flies,
adds pages to the history books,
achieves equality
between killed and killed,
teaches lovers to write letters,
accustoms young women to waiting,
fills the newspapers
with articles and pictures,
builds new houses
for the orphans,
invigorates the coffin makers,
gives grave diggers
a pat on the back
and paints a smile on the leader's face.
The war works with unparalleled diligence!
Yet no one gives it
a word of praise.

- The War Works Hard, pg. 6-7

* * *

1
Yes, I did write in my letter
that I would wait for you forever.
I didn't mean exactly "forever,"
I just included it for the rhythm.

2
No, he was not among them.
There were so many of them!
More than I've seen in my life
on any television screen.
And yet he was not among them.

3
It has no carvings
or arms.
It always remains there
in front of the television
this empty chair.

4
I dream of a magic wand
that changes my kisses to stars.
At night you can gaze at them
and know they are innumerable.

5
I thank everyone I don't love.
They don't cause me heartache;
they don't make me write long letters;
they don't disturb my dreams.
I don't wait for them anxiously;
I don't read their horoscopes in magazines;
I don't dial their numbers;
I don't think of them.
I thank them a lot.
They don't turn my life upside down.

6
I drew a door
to sit behind, ready
to open the door
as soon as you arrive.

- Non-Military Statements, pg. 15-16

* * *

Please don't ask me, America.
I don't remember
on which street,
with whom,
or under which star.
Don't ask me . . .
I don't remember
the colours of the people
or their signatures.
I don't remember if they had
our faces
and our dreams,
if they were singing
or not,
writing from the left
or the right
or not writing at all,
sleeping in houses
on sidewalks
or in airports,
making love or not making love.
Please don't ask me, America.
I don't remember their names
or their birthplaces.
People are grass -
they grow everywhere, America.
Don't ask me . . .
I don't remember
what time it was,
what the weather was like,
which language,
or which flag.
Don't ask me . . .
I don't remember
how long they walked under the sun
or how many died.
I don't remember
the shapes of the boats
or the number of stops . . .
How many suitcases they carries
or left behind,
if they came complaining
or without complaint.
Stop your questioning, America,
and offer your hand
to the tired
on the other shore.
Offer it without questions
or waiting lists.
What good if it to gain the whole world
if you lose your soul, America?
Who said that the sky
would lose all of its stars
if night passed without answer?
America, leave your questionnaires to the river
and leave me to my lover.
It has been a long time,
we are two distant, rippling shores
and the river wriggles between us
like a well-cooked fish.
It has been a long time, America,
(longer than the stories of my grandmother
in the evening)
and we are waiting for the signal
to throw our shell in the river.
We know that the river is full
of shells
this last one
wouldn't matter,
yet it matters to the shell . . .
Why do you ask all these questions?
You want our fingerprints
in all languages
and I have become old,
older than my father.
He used to tell me in the evenings
when no trains ran:
One day, we will go to America.
One day, we will go
and sing a song,
translated or not translated,
at the Statue of Liberty.
And now, America, now
I come to you without my father.
The dead ripen faster
than Indian figs,
but they never grow older, America.
They come in shifts of shadow and light
in our dreams
and as shooting stars
or curve in rainbows
over the houses we left behind.
They sometimes get angry
if we keep them waiting long . . .
What time is it now?
I am afraid I will receive
your registered mail, America,
in this hour
which is good for nothing . . .
So I will toy with the freedom
like teasing a pet cat.
I wouldn't know what else
to do with it
in this hour
which is good for nothing . . .
And my sweetheart
there, on the opposite
shore of the river
carries a flower for me.
And I - as you know -
dislike faded flowers.
I do like my sweetheart's handwriting
shining each day in the mail.
I salvage it from among ad fliers
and a special offer:
"Buy One Get One Free"
and an urgent promotional announcement:
"Win a million dollars
if you subscribe to this magazine!"
and bills to be paid
in monthly installments.
I like my sweetheart's handwriting,
though it gets shakier every day.
We have a single picture
just one picture, America.
I want it.
I want that moment
(forever out of reach)
in the picture which I know
from every angle:
the circular moment of sky.
Imagine, America,
if one of us drops out of the picture
and leaves the album full
of loneliness,
of if life becomes
a camera
without film.
Imagine, America!
Without a frame,
the night will take us
tomorrow,
darling,
tomorrow
the night
will take us
without a frame.
We will shake the museums
forever from their sleep,
fix our broken clocks
so we'll tick in the public squares
whenever the train
passes us by.
Tomorrow,
darling,
tomorrow
we will bloom:
two leaves of a tree
we will try not to be
too graceful and green
and in time
we will tumble down like dancers
taken by the wind
to the place whose name
we'll have forgotten.
We will be glad for the sake of turtles
because they persist along their way . . .
Tomorrow
darling,
tomorrow,
I'll look at your eyes
to see your new wrinkles,
the lines of our future dreams.
As you braid my gray hair
under rain
or sun
or moon,
every hair will know
that nothing happens
twice,
every kiss a country
with a history
a geography
and a language
with joy and sadness
with war
and ruins
and holidays
and ticking clocks . . .
And when the pain in your neck returns, darling,
you will not have time to complain
and won't be concerned.
The pain will remain inside us
coy as snow that won't melt.
Tomorrow, darling,
tomorrow,
two rings will jingle
in the wooden box.
They have been shining for a long time
on two trembling hands,
entangled
by the absence.
Tomorrow,
the whiteness will expose
all its colours
as we celebrate the return
of what was lost
or concealed
in the whiteness.
How should I know, America,
which of the colours
was the most joyful
tumultuous
alienated
or assimilated
of them all?
How would I know, America?

- America, pg. 33-

[Dee · Rating 4 out of 5]

My friend asked me to read this collection a while ago; I finished it within few hours but since then I have been reading and re-reading few poems because of how intense the emotions are being conveyed by the poet. You have to read them again to realize they're real and they are happening and when you look at your hands, they're all stained; there's nothing you can do about it, Dunya made sure I felt it.

You know sometimes it is strange, the whole idea of grief. Especially induced by trauma from wars. You never know it exists till you try to word it and then you cannot anymore. Having witnessed the Sri Lankan war in a closer context, I felt closer to home, guess that's what the poet intended to do in the first place.

These are some of my favorite excerpts from the book:

An Urgent Call:

Don’t worry, nobody will force you to feed the birds when you carry a gun.

Between Two Wars:

eventually we forget how, in the short lull between two wars, we became so old.

America:

People are grass— they grow everywhere, America.

What good is it to gain the whole world if you lose your soul, America?

America, leave your questionnaires to the river and leave me to my lover.

Silent Movie:

We are a silent movie with a bad director. No wonder the gods get bored or switch us off and go to sleep or forget about us

Non-Military Statements:

I thank everyone I don’t love. They don’t cause me heartache; they don’t make me write long letters; they don’t disturb my dreams. I don’t wait for them anxiously; I don’t read their horoscopes in magazines; I don’t dial their numbers; I don’t think of them. I thank them a lot. They don’t turn my life upside down.

4.3

[DeadWeight · Rating 1 out of 5]

Now, Dunya, I know you had your beef with Saddam, but maybe there was a better time to air your grievances about his regime than right in the middle of a merciless and inhuman war where the belligerent side, the side whose land you presently live on, can point to your book as justification for their "liberation" effort. One poem reveals to us the mother of a prisoner of conscience in Iraq is sad because she doesn't understand why her son is in prison (bit condescending to assume she doesn't understand this, innit?) when her visit with him is cut short :( but it is maybe worth mentioning that this is being published after photos emerged of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, many of whose mothers probably didn't even know they were there, being tortured, raped, and smeared with faeces.

This, like Ilya Kaminski, is the Poetry of Empire, an aesthetic obfuscation of the present, past, and future. Don't be tricked into mistaking wishy-washy poetic sentimentality for political insight. It's not.

[Meghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to chance to hear her read her work just the other day and she is AMAZING! She's an Iraqi/American who focuses a lot on war and love in her poetry.

The title poem "The War Works Hard" is worth picking up the book all on its own.

Not only does her work give insight to another culture and its perceptions but she happens to be a very skilled writer.

All the poems are translated and there is a small index of notes explaining of few of the terms that are unfamiliar to non-Iraqi natives.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant writer, memorable and thought provoking poems. This is the first book of her poetry I have read. I really liked "Crashed Acts", Buzz", "An Urgent Call", "The Rocking Chair, "The Artist Child", The Bulletin Board, and "The New Year".

I would rate this 4.5 stars and will definitely share it with my weekly poetry group.

[June · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thank everyone I don't love.
They don't cause me heartache;
they don't make me write long letters;
they don't disturb my dreams.
I don't await them anxiously;
I don't read their horoscopes in magazines:
I don't dial their numbers;
I don't think of them.
I thank them a lot.
They don't turn my life upside down.

[Ethan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bloody, traumatic collection of poems from an Iraqi poet now living in the U.S. Filled with many moments of brilliance, the book occasionally relies on generic images to instill the horrors of war, torture and exile.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very beautiful collection of poetry. Mikhail's poems are really accessible and not too polemic. I would highly recommend it.

[AJ Nolan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and devastating book of poetry by an Iraqi poet covering both Iraq Wars.

[Mirjam]

You planted pomegranates and prisons
round, red and full.

[Callum McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this collection, exiled Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail writes predominantly about the myriad ways her homeland and its people (particularly women and children) have been devastated by war. Though she uses some nice imagery, there’s a directness to many of the pieces that allows the sobering power of the subject matter to shine through. Experimentation is employed sparingly, and is all the more successful for it. And despite never shying away from reality, I appreciated the thread of hope that runs throughout.

[Лара · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember reading this book in high school, when I was grieving the loss of my friend.

I recently found it at the bottom of some dusty box in the basement. While I was flipping through the pages, I saw a couple of lines that I had underlined.

"I don't know how to add your absence to my life. I don't know how to subtract myself from it."

The definition of the throes of struggle with grief.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collections is comprised of three sections: The War Works Hard from 2004, and two sections written in the 1990's. It is the title section that is of most interest, with some finely detailed onservations of the effects of war on the people who must live through it.

[Rima · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely heartbreaking pieces of poetry highlighting the traumatic side effects to civil war.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Her poetry is lyrical, honest and raw. A fantastic collection focusing on people affected by war.

[Frank Karioris · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much here to digest, much of the pain lying under only a few grains of sand. Looking forward to reading their forthcoming volume now.

[Riaz Ujjan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Splendid

[anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

when you *just* know so much is lost in translation.

[Elizai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems are pretty

The poems non the book paint the horror of war and the effects on the people of a country trying To live their lives

[Meag · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heart stopping

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 1/2 stars

[mia albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

stunning poetry on war

[raspberrygods]

“There is a knock at the door.
How disappointing…
It is the New Year and not you.
”