sense in terms of the verbal pleasure it provides
to the reader. The play with words becomes
more intense in the next line, further subordinat-
ing the meaning of the lines to the linguistic
quality. ‘‘Burning thirst’’ and ‘‘meagerness’’ are
in Arabic ghalil and qalil. They not only make a
perfect rhyme, but through consonance and
assonance, they resonate in our imagination.
The last line is heavily charged with emotion,
announcing the climax through lyrical intensity:
and the dialogue that naturally harmonizes in a
slender woman
The word ‘‘dialogue,’’ which is hiwar in Ara-
bic, seems to exude an erotic glow before it col-
lapses in the harmony with the slender woman.
Actually, the Arabic verb yatajanas, which
means ‘‘harmonize,’’ has a definite sexual pun
that transforms the word dialogue from its literal
level to a symbolic level of sexual intercourse.
Yet, one cannot resist feeling that the speaker’s
sensual, even erotic, pleasure shines not only
through his harmony with the slender woman,
but also through his child-like excitement at see-
ing his words linguistically harmonize in a slen-
der poem. The poem gains its integrity not from
its reasoning or its intellectual content. Rather it
gathers force and focus from its emotional unity,
which is expressed in a linguistic harmony that
seems to liberate the language from reason,
logic, and other symptoms of ideology. A reader
familiar with Iraqi vernacular poetry, especially
the folkloric part of it, can easily appreciate
Yusuf’s experimentation with the vernaculariza-
tion of standard Arabic.
In 1973, upon his return to Baghdad from a
seven-year exile in Algeria, Sa’di Yusuf pub-
lished ‘‘Fi Tilka Al-Ayyam’’ (In Those Days),
his most impressive poetic collage of the vernac-
ular and standard Arabic. The poem is a cele-
bration of survival and safe homecoming, but it
is also a glorification of the poet’s involvement
with the Iraqi Communist Party. On one level
the poem is a tribute to the Iraqi people and their
struggle against colonialism and fascism; on the
other, it is the poet’s tribute to himself and the
pride he derives from the sacrifices he made in
belonging to the Party and to the people. Signifi-
cantly, the poem is dated 31 March, the birth-
date of the Iraqi Communist Party in 1934. To
express these layers of emotions, Yusuf chose the
most popular and most folkloric of Iraqi vernac-
ular poetry, the abudhiyia. It is a quatrain in
which the first three lines rhyme; the fourth line
usually has a different rhyme, typically present-
ing a resolution to the problem stated in the first
three lines. Because the poem epitomizes Yusuf’s
main poetic characteristics, it is worth translat-
ing in its entirety:
On May 1, I was officially imprisoned And the
royal officers registered me as a Communist I
was charged—as usual in those days—and My
shirt was black, my tie was yellow. I left the
court, with the guards’ beatings And the
judge’s ridicule. I have a wife Whom I love,
and a book made of date-palms in which I
learned the first names. I have been to some
jails full of lice, and others full of sands, and
others vacant, except for my face.
That day when we ended up in the prison
that never ends I assured myself that the ulti-
mate end is not ended O you who get to my
people, tell them I am not ended Tonight we
stayed here, the morning we will be in Baghdad.
Tonight I celebrate the moon that visits
me through the bars, the Guard has slept,
and the breaths of Siba are heavy with the
humidity of Shat al-Arab, The visiting moon
turned toward me, I was humming in the cor-
ner of my cell: What are you carrying for me in
your eyes? Air I can touch? Greetings from her?
The visiting moon used to enter my cell through
the bars and sit with me, sharing the black
blanket. When he left me I found a silver key
in my hand.
All the songs have vanished but the peo-
ple’s songs. And when the voice is salable, the
people will never buy. Deliberately I forgot
what [went wrong] between me and the people
For I belong to them, I am like them, and the
voice comes from them.
On the third of May, I saw the six walls
cracked up. And from them a man I know
comes out, wearing a proletariat fatigue, and a
hat of black leather. I asked him, I thought you
left...wasn’t your name among the first names?
Haven’t you volunteered to fight in Madrid?
Haven’t you fought behind the revolutionary
bunkers in Petrograd? Haven’t you been killed
in the oil strike? Haven’t I seen you in the
marshes [among the reeds] with your machine
gun? Haven’t you hoisted your red flag for
[Paris] Commune? Weren’t you organized in the
people’s army in Sumatra? Take my hand. For
the six walls could close up any moment...take
my hand.
O Neighbor, I have believed in the home-
less star. O Neighbor, the nights of my age
announced: you are the home. We have trav-
eled all ways, but the heart stays at home. O
Neighbor, do not go farther, my destination is
Baghdad. (al-’Amal al-Kamila, 132–134)
The underlined quatrains are written in the
traditional abudhiyya of the vernacular poetry ofAmerica, America