southern Iraq. Their poetic intensity, coming
from their high pitch, enhances the dramatic
sense in the poem by counterpointing the stand-
ard Arabic, which sounds more meditative and
therefore prosaic. What gives the entire poem its
distinct poetic quality is its surprising hybrid qual-
ity and the folkloric depiction of the popular
Communist hero, who is given an archetypal
dimension; that is, he is capable of transcending
places and times in order to inspire the interna-
tional revolution. While the peaks of emotion are
expressed with highly lyrical intensity in the ver-
nacular quatrains, the standard Arabic, al-fusha,
is employed to capture historical moments of epic
heroism. The folkloric element is deftly used to
enhance that epic or mythical quality of the Com-
munist hero. In lines 15–20, the moon collabo-
rates with the hero in prison, bringing him good
news from his faraway beloved and giving him a
silver key.Insouthern Iraqi folklore, a silver keyis
supposed to have magical qualities that help one
to open all kinds of doors, including prison doors.
Significantly, the three quatrains are devoted
to celebrating the people, and the speaker in them
becomes a collective voice of the popular masses,
punctuating the three movements of the poem.
The element of repetition, which is part of the
structure of al-abudhiyya, is effectively utilized.
As a quatrain, al-abudhiyya requires that the first
three lines end in exact (or perfect) rhymes, that is,
the same word with the condition that each time it
suggest a different meaning. In the first quatrain,
lines 11–14, the word intaha (‘‘ended’’ or ‘‘van-
ished’’) has three different meanings. In the first
line it means the prison ‘‘has not ended yet,’’ in the
second, our aspiration ‘‘has not vanished,’’ and in
the third, the speaker/hero has not, despite prison
and torture, been defeated.
Repetition is one of Yusuf’s favorite and
most effective poetic techniques. It links his
poetic discourse with the traditional poetic
forms of the southern Iraqi vernacular. Further-
more, as Ferial J. Ghazoul has insightfully
noticed, repetition in Yusuf’s poetry becomes a
means of resistance and defiance (‘‘Qasa’id Aqalu
Samtan,’’ p. 247). In other words, Yusuf employs
repetition as a means of political resistance. A
good example of the defiant repetition is found
in a poem titled ‘‘The Night of Hamra,’’ written,
as Ghazoul, who translated the poem into Eng-
lish (‘‘The Poetics of The Political Poem,’’ 113–
114), notes, ‘‘in the summer of 1982 in West
Beirut under siege by Israeli forces’’ (113–114)...
In addition to the incantatory force the rep-
etition of the word ‘‘candle’’ establishes, as Gha-
zoul notes, the ascetic slimness of the poem
renders the poem itself into a candle that the
entire Israeli blackout could not extinguish.
Actually the last line, ‘‘A candle in my hand,’’
transforms the poet, amidst the ruins of civiliza-
tion in Beirut, into a Diogenes still for centuries
carrying his lamp in the middle of the day,
searching for meaning and truth in the absurdity
of the human condition.
Sa’di Yusuf’s fascination with and aspira-
tion to the condition of vernacular and folkloric
poetry are evident in the majority of his poetry.
In fact one is tempted to say that Yusuf achieves
his best poetry when he is closest to the vernac-
ular and the folkloric. Significantly, in 1956, very
early in his career, Yusuf declared his fascination
with the vernacular when he discovered and
introduced Muzaffer al-Nawwab, the most
prominent Iraqi vernacular poet. In his article
on al-Nawwab’s first published poem, ‘‘Li al-rail
wa Hammad,’’ (For the Train and Hamad),
Yusuf is reported to have said he would put all
his poetry at the feet of that beautiful poem. This
love for the ordinary and the simple and the
sonic as the natural attributes of the vernacular
inspired Yusuf to creatively appropriate for his
own poetic purposes both the vernacular and the
classical Arabic forms. Whereas the other pio-
neers and practitioners in the free verse, such as
al-Sayyab and al-Mala’ika, were liberating the
Arabic poem from the traditional unity of the
line and the mandatory use of the two-hemistich
form, Yusuf’s achievement primarily lies in cre-
ating what might be called a hybrid poetic form
that collapses the traditional Arabic poetic
forms into a synthesis of the Iraqi southern ver-
nacular, folklore, and popular songs. Evidently,
Yusuf’s politics and his poetics, which inform
each other, coincide and blend into a highly dis-
tinctive poetic style that influenced and has been
influencing younger poets since the 1956s.
Source:Saadi A. Simawe, ‘‘The Politics and Poetics of
Sa’di Yusef: The Use of the Vernacular,’’ inArab Studies
Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 4, Fall 1997, 10 pp.Sources
Booth, Marilyn, Review ofLoin du premier ciel,inWorld
Literature Today, Vol. 74, No. 4, Autumn 2000, p. 904.America, America