I would like to begin with an apology. Apology, because my first post did not mention Iraq: The suffering, the injustice, the Gulf war, pigeons, poetry, misery, US, Bush, oil, Saddam.
Nada.
This post wouldn't clarify anything about Iraq. I promise to write about it more once I'll find the right resources: books, people, songs, and pigeons' guides.
What is about to happen on this virtual spot of mine, is a tentative game that will try to connect the puzzle pieces from the play's visions about Palestine, and the vision from Iraq.
Confused? Please, be patience. I shall explain.
After deciding to dedicate this post to the Palestinian exile through poetry, I've noticed that Dear Ms. Wallace gave me a hint-a tip of a shoelace- where to find the connections between the visions, between the politics, between the nations of Palestine and Iraq.
At Ali's vision, the last one in the trilogy, he mentions his friend, Samir, great affection to al-Sayyab. (p. 62). In short, Badr Shakir al-Sayyab (1926-1964) is an Iraqi poet, who considers to be one of the poets who revolutionize the Arab poetry, due to his usage of mythical images in order to criticize politics and social issues.
During my research about Palestinian poets and their artistic responses to the Nakba (the Disaster/The Catastrophe in Arabic, the Palestinian term for their Exodus from israel after the war in 1948), I found that many poets in the Arab world created their own artistic expression to the Palestinian Nakba-- among them, al-Sayyab.
This Iraqi poet wrote one of the most significant poems that empathized with the suffering of the exiled Palestinian people. His poem, "The Caravan of the Wretched," emphasizes the importance of brotherhood among the Arab nations:
Cain! Where is you brother? Where is your brother?
Heaven asked him burning with anger.
Cain! Where is you brother?
The star curled up in a call.
Lying in the tents of the refugees.
...
Not only did they drive us out of our
villages and cities,
but also from the habitation of men.
Today caves are filled by us
howling for hunger,
and dying unnoticed,
with no graves left behind us.
(al Sayyab, Badr Shakir, Palestine and Modern Arab Poetry, Suliman Khalid A., p.112)
There are many Arab poets that criticized the silence of the Arab world, the US and Israel to the suffering of the Palestinian people, but Wallace's choice to mention one of them in the Iraqi vision, proves me that she wants us to link them all together, not only under a play, but also politically, socially, artistically.
Al-Sayyab was a revolutionary figure in iraq, and was deprived of his profession as a teacher due to his social-communists points of view. One of his great inspirer was Mahmoud Darwish, the national Palestinian poet, who I will write more about at my next post. Meanwhile, I'll leave you with an Iraqi lullaby from the great collection "Lullabies from the Axis of Evil": a great lullabies collection from Iraq,Palestine, Korea and many more...
Until next time,
Renana
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