Badr Shakir al Sayyab ( ar, بدر شاكر السياب) (December 24, 1926 in Jaykur, near
Basra
Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...
– December 24, 1964 in
Kuwait
Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...
) was a leading Iraqi poet, well known throughout the
Arab world
The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...
and one of the most influential
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
poets of all time. His works have been translated in more than 10 languages including
English
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* English people
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Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
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,
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
Basra
Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...
, the eldest child of a date grower and shepherd. He graduated from the Higher Teacher Training College of Baghdad in 1948 but was later dismissed from his teaching position for being a member of the Iraqi Communist Party.
Banned from teaching because of his political views, he next found employment as a taster, working for the Iraqi Date Company in Basra. He soon returned to Baghdad however, where he worked as a security guard for a road paving company. He was actively involved in the 1952 Iraqi Intifada, in which he joined his fellow workers in sacking the offices of the
US Information Service
The United States Information Agency (USIA), which operated from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to " public diplomacy". In 1999, prior to the reorganization of intelligence agencies by President George W. Bush, President Bill ...
, climbed up an electricity pole and declaimed a revolutionary poem he had composed the previous night. The government instituted a campaign of repression against Communist sympathisers in the wake of the uprising, and Sayyab feared that he would be arrested. He decided to flee the country, obtained a false Iranian passport under the assumed name of Ali Artink, and escaped over the border to Iran. From Abadan he then sailed to
Kuwait
Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...
in 1953. This journey was the subject of his poem '' 'An Escape' '' (Farar).
He worked for a while at the Kuwait Electricity Company, but in 1954 he returned to Iraq and severed all his links with the Communist Party. He was therefore allowed to work in the Iraqi public service again, and given a job in the General Directorate for Import and Export. However after the
14 July Revolution
The 14 July Revolution, also known as the 1958 Iraqi coup d'état, took place on 14 July 1958 in Iraq, and resulted in the overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq that had been established by King Faisal I in 1921 under the auspices of the B ...
he wrote poetry critical of the new head of state
Abd al-Karim Qasim
Abd al-Karim Qasim Muhammad Bakr al-Fadhli al-Zubaidi ( ar, عبد الكريم قاسم ' ) (21 November 1914 – 9 February 1963) was an Iraqi Army brigadier and nationalist who came to power when the Iraqi monarchy was overthrown d ...
, and was therefore dismissed from his post once again in April 1959. Following the Kirkuk Massacre he became outspokenly anti-Communist and published a series of essays called ''‘Kuntu shiyū‘iyyan’'' (‘I was a Communist').
In 1957 the Syrian poet
Adunis
Ali Ahmad Said Esber (, North Levantine: ; born 1 January 1930), also known by the pen name Adonis or Adunis ( ar, أدونيس ), is a Syrian poet, essayist and translator. He led a modernist revolution in the second half of the 20th century, ...
and the Lebanese poet Yusuf al-Khal began publishing a new magazine, ''Majallat Shi'r'' ('Poetry Magazine') in Beirut. Sayyab began writing for it and this brought him into contact with other writers in their circle, including Ounsi el-Hajj, and Khalil Hawi. In 1960 Sayyab visited Beirut to publish a collection of his poetry, and won first prize (1000 Lebanese pounds) in a competition run by ''Majallat Shi'r'' for his collection ''Onshudat al-Matar'' (The Rain Song) which was later to become among his most widely acclaimed works.
Illness and death
Returning to Iraq, Sayyab was given a job at the Iraqi Ports Authority and moved to Basra. However he was arrested again on 4 February 1961 and held until 20 February. By this time his political stance and rising literary fame had brought him to the attention of the
Congress for Cultural Freedom
The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was an anti-communist advocacy group founded in 1950. At its height, the CCF was active in thirty-five countries. In 1966 it was revealed that the CIA was instrumental in the establishment and funding of the ...
which invited him to attend a conference entitled 'The Arab Writer and the Modern World’ in Rome. However in the same year, his health began to deteriorate. In April 1962 he was admitted to the American University Hospital in Beirut, and his literary friends, including Yusuf Al-Khal, paid his fees. On his return to Basra in September 1962 the Congress for Cultural Freedom provided ongoing financial assistance to him and arranged for him to go to London to seek medical advice.
At the end of 1962, Sayyab travelled to the UK. Professor
Albert Hourani
Albert Habib Hourani ( ar, ألبرت حبيب حوراني ''Albart Ḥabīb Ḥūrānī''; 31 March 1915 – 17 January 1993) was a Lebanese British historian, specialising in the history of the Middle East and Middle Eastern studies.
Bac ...
had managed to grant him a fellowship at Durham University and he also thought about registering as a student at
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
to undertake a PhD, but was not able to do so. Admitted to St Mary's Hospital, London his illness was finally diagnosed as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis From London he went to Paris for a week in March 1963, where his diagnosis was confirmed.
In February 1964 his already poor health took a sudden turn for the worse, and he was taken into the Basra Port Hospital with double pneumonia, heart problems and an ulcer. As his treatment continued beyond what he could afford, the Society of Iraqi Authors and Writers, of which he was a member, secured the agreement of the Ministry of Health to continue caring for him. Eventually the Kuwaiti poet Ali Al-Sabti persuaded the Kuwaiti government to take over his treatment, and he was moved to the Amiri Hospital in Kuwait on 6 July 1964. While being treated there, he published a number of poems in the magazine ''Al-Ra'ed al-'Arabi'' ('The Arab Pioneer'). He died in the hospital on 24 December 1964.
Legacy
Badr Shakir al-Sayyab's experiments helped to change the course of modern Arabic poetry. He produced seven collections of poetry and several translations, which include the poetry of
Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon (, , 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review ''Littérature''. He ...
,
Nazim Hikmet
Subahdar, also known as Nazim or in English as a "Subah", was one of the designations of a governor of a Subah (province) during the Khalji dynasty of Bengal, Mamluk dynasty (Delhi), Khalji dynasty, Tughlaq dynasty, Mughal era ( of India who was ...
, and
Edith Sitwell
Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964) was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells. She reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents and lived much of her life with her governess ...
, who, with T. S. Eliot, had a profound influence on him.Divine Inspiration: The Life of Jesus in World Poetry By Robert Atwan, George Dardess, Peggy Rosenthal Published by Oxford University Press US, 1997 p 177 At the end of the 1940s he launched the
free verse
Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French '' vers libre'' form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.
Defi ...
Abd al-Wahhab Al-Bayati
Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati (December 19, 1926 – August 3, 1999) was an Iraqi Arab poet. He was a pioneer in his field and defied conventional forms of poetry that had been common for centuries.
Biography
He was born in Baghdad, near the shrine o ...
and Shathel Taqa, giving it credibility with the many fine poems he published in the fifties. The publication of his third volume, '' Rain Song'', in 1960 was one of the most significant events in contemporary Arabic poetry, instrumental in drawing attention to the use of myth in poetry. He revolutionized every element of the poem and wrote on highly involved political and social topics, as well as many personal themes. The
Palestinian
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
poet
Mahmoud Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish ( ar, محمود درويش, Maḥmūd Darwīsh, 13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was a Palestinian poet and author who was regarded as the Palestinian national poet. He won numerous awards for his works. Darwish used Palestine ...
was greatly impressed and influenced by the poetry of Badr Shakir al-Sayyab.Guardian 11 August 2008 ''Mahmoud Darwish'' by Peter Clark
In the realm of literary controversy, Sayyab stated that Nazik al-Malaikah's claim to have discovered free verse herself was false, and drew attention to the earlier work of Ali Ahmad Bakathir (1910–69) who had developed the two-hemistich format in the mid 1930s. It was Bakathir in fact who had written fractured (
caesura
300px, An example of a caesura in modern western music notation
A caesura (, . caesuras or caesurae; Latin for " cutting"), also written cæsura and cesura, is a metrical pause or break in a verse where one phrase ends and another phrase begin ...
) poetry for the first time in Arabic poetry. Bakathir (1910–69), in the second edition of his book "Akhnatun wa Nefertiti", acknowledged the recognition Sayyab had brought him.
In 2014, some of Sayyab's works were banned from the
Riyadh International Book Fair
The Riyadh International Book Fair (RIBF) is an annual book fair in Saudi Arabia. It lasts 11 days and regularly attracts over a half million visitors (it is not the largest fair in the MENA region, contrary to some claims). The fair is used to ...
by the Saudi authorities.
Poetry
*''Christ After Crucifixion'' (المسيح بعد الصلب)
* ''Wilting Flowers'' (أزهار ذابلة, 1947)
* ''Hurricanes'' (أعاصير, 1948)
* ''Flowers and myths'' (أزهار وأساطير, 1950)
* ''Dawn of Peace'' (فجر السلام, 1951)
* ''The Grave Digger'' (Long Poem) (حفار القبور, 1952)
* ''The Blind Prostitute'' (المومس العمياء, 1954)
* ''Weapons and Children'' (الأسلحة والأطفال, 1955)
* '' Rain Song'' (انشودة المطر, 1960)
* ''The Drowned Temple'' (1962, المعبد الغريق)
* ''Alaguenan''? Home (1963)
* ''The Balcony of the Nobleman's Daughter'' (1964, شناشيل ابنة الجلبي)
See also
*
List of Iraqi artists
The following is a list of important artists, including visual arts, poets and musicians, who were born in Iraq, active in Iraq or whose body of work is primarily concerned with Iraqi themes or subject matter.
Note: This article uses Arabic nami ...