The Iraqi Poet Badr Shakir al-Sayyab

[Note: This is the 20th 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 #20

al-Ma’qil 10/15/1963

My Dear Brother Jabra (Ibrahim Jabra),

Welcome to Iraq. I hope you enjoyed your summer in Lebanon. I am certain that you continued your literary activities while there. Besides Taoufiq Sayigh and Yusuf al-Khal, with whom did you meet? Did you see Salma al-Khadra’ al-Jayusi and Laila ba’albaki? Can you write me the details of the different phases of literary activities in Lebanon?

I heard, actually, I read, that you are going to deliver a series of literary lectures on Baghdad Radio. This is a good thing. Something like rust has begun to cling to literary life here, and it is the duty of great writers to remove this now when the field is wide open for those who are creative and innovative.

By the way, can you create a design for my new poetry collection, the manuscript that I am considering for publication shortly? It is entitled, “Shanashil Ibnat al- Jalabi.” You certainly know what shanashil looks like. You have also read, so far, five poems from this collection: three in “Hiwar,” and two in “al-‘Amilun fi al-Nift.”

I believe that Dr. ‘Ali Kamal has returned from Jordan by now. Can you please consult him for a prescription for me? My illness is a nervous disorder. The most serious of my complaints is that my back does not support me while standing up unless I lean with one hand on the chair on which I am sitting and hold onto the cane or the cushion of the chair with the other hand. Primarily, this is the problem, and then comes the frailty of my right leg. Write to me about the cost of the medicine, and I will transfer the money to you. This is an extremely important matter for me. Do not neglect it, My Dear Brother.

Perhaps I will visit Baghdad early next month or the following month if my health improves enough to allow me to ride the plane. It is the climbing of the plane’s ladder that is the most difficult for me.
These days I am addicted to reading novels. Among the novels I have read are: “Taras Bolba” by Googol, “Those Who Have and Those Who Have Not” by Hemingway, and “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” by D.H. Laurence. In addition, [I have read] some Chinese and Soviet novels, poetry, and Dostoevsky’s novels: “Letters from the House of the Dead” and “The White Nights,” etc.

If my health improves, I will follow the plan that I had set for myself: the reading of philosophy. It is time to carry out this plan that I had laid out a long time ago but which I have never had the opportunity to go ahead with except in an intermittent way.

Regards to my sister, Um Sadir, and kisses to Sadir and Yasir. (Who won the race so far?) And to all the brothers.

Take care of yourself for your sincere brother,

Badr Shakir al-Sayyab
Al-Mawani’ al-Iraqiya – al-Ma’qil

[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. 227) Translated from the original Arabic and with an introduction by George Nicolas El-Hage, Ph.D., Columbia University.]