JAWAHIRI 65elegy and description. He even eulogized King Faisal I, Faisal II and Prince
'Abdul Ilah.^108 He attempted to write erotic poetry and to describe nights
of revelry, dancing and drinking, and indulgence in sensual pleasures.^109
However, such attempts are usually solemn and heavy: they generally lack
the charm and obvious joie de vivre which one finds in Rusafi's poetry, al-
though his warmly sensuous poem on Aphrodite is an exception.no Likewise,
his nature poetry seems artificial, conventional and devoid of any fresh vision,
as is obvious in 'After the Rain' (i, 158). On the whole Jawahiri's range is much
more limited than Rusafi's. His real achievement lies in fact in his political
poetry, where there is no doubt that he is without peer among the neoclassi-
cists.
like other neoclassicists Jawahiri resorts to the use of narrative in his
political verse, as in his poems 'The Mob' (m,109), professedly inspired by
Emile Zola, and 'A Refugee Woman on the Feast Day' (III,183). The latter is a
moving account of the plight of a young refugee woman whose father was
killed by Israeli soldiers, and who was driven to sell her body in order to pro-
vide for her little brother. Such instances of the use of narrative, however, are
rather rare in Jawahiri's work. He prefers to make his political comments
directly, and often with an overwhelming effect upon his readers, despite the
inordinate length of many of his poems. Time and again we are told of the
truly galvanizing effect his poems had on the Iraqi public on certain occasions.
He mercilessly lashed out at every form of social and political injustice in
Iraq (and in the rest of the Arab world). He attacked British and French im-
perialism, in Egypt, Algeria or Iraq: in 'Precious Blood, or Say to the Youth
of Egypt' (i,109) or 'Algeria' (i,115). In 'Port Said' (i,125) he lamented the
Anglo-French-Israeli aggression on Egypt in 1956. As early as 1931 we find
him in 'Blood speaks after Ten...' U223) boldly denouncing social inequality
and calling upon the masses to rise and rebel against the feudalistic forces of
oppression in society, and take up arms in a bloody struggle. In a poem with
the explicit title 'Feudalism' (Iqtot), published in 1939, he describes various
aspects of the appalling gap separating the rich from the poor and warns the
former against the wrath and impending revolution ofthedeprived masses.^111
What is falsely described to the hapless people as Fate or God's will, he points
out in another poem (m, 113), is only 'a government decree'. In 1960 he addres-
ses the working classes in 'The Workers' Day' (i, 183), glorifying their struggle.
Nepotism, corruption, false values and lack of self-respect all come in turn
under his heavy fire. In 'The Diggers' ( 1 161) he ferociously attacks those who,
motivated by excessive hero-worship, attempt to falsify history by digging
up social or political figures from the past and bestowing upon them a great-
ness which they did not deserve. The Arabs in general and the Iraqis in parti-