The Iraqi Poet Badr Shakir al-Sayyab

[Note: This is the 18th in a series of translations of selected letters of the noted Iraqi poet Badr Shakir al-Sayyab. For more information on the poet, click here.]

Letter #18

al-Ma’qil
20 July, 1963

My Dear Brother Abu Arwad (Adunis),

Your letter made me very happy because it came to me from my dearest friend after a long interruption. It also brought me the news that I have long been hoping for. It is rather a pity, Adunis, that the starlings should soar in the sky of poetry while the eagles remain with their wings folded and for no good reason other than incrimination and falsification.

My health is improving extremely slowly; nevertheless, there is an improvement. I hope it improves enough so I can come to Beirut this winter.

Currently, I am not writing anything. I am experiencing a period of stagnation after the period of that worthy activity in England where I produced “ Manzil al-Aqnan,” which has already been published. I will send your copy as soon as my personal copies arrive. I also have a new poetry collection still waiting for a publisher.
Perhaps it will be the best that I have written so far. [He is referring to “Shanashil Ibnat al-Halabi.”]

By the way, how much would Sharif al-Ansari pay for this collection? The sweet, sharp taste that your poem, “The Eagle,” has left under my tongue is still there until now. You should write more poems of this caliber: You have already started- as far as fame is concerned- outside the sphere of the “Shi’r” group; the poetic arena will soon be all yours, without a competitor, with the first poem you publish after your disengagement from the “Shi’r” publisher. May “Shi’r” enjoy its remaining poets, and “Water for the Family Horse,” etc.

Have you read the insults that a worthless Iraqi poet hurled at me on the pages of the “al-Adaab” journal? They will not catch up with us no matter how many curses they heap upon us. Let them hurl as many curses as their pen allows. We believe in a higher value which is poetry, truth and beauty, not in pleasing this person or that.

My greetings to all our participating friends. Greetings from Um Ghailan and Ghailan to the family and to Arwad, “my fiancé in Lebanon,” as Ghailan calls her.

Take care of yourself for your brother who loves you as a great poet and an even greater human being.

Sincerely yours,
Al-Sayyab

[From the book, al-Sayyab’s Letters, by Majid al-Samurra’i, (Beirut: Al-Mu’assasa al-‘Arabiya li-al-dirasat wa-al-Nashr, Second Edition, 1994, p. 217) Translated from the original Arabic and with an introduction by George Nicolas El-Hage, Ph.D., Columbia University.]