Khulusi set out to introduce English readers to contemporary Iraqi poetry by translating the works of some of the most prominent and influential poets of the first half of the 20th century. This was a period of significant social and political change, an era of wars and civil strife, and also a time when poetry was highly valued and influential in Arab society and particularly in Iraq. The appearance of a famous poet at a public meeting for example, would generate a large crowd, and mainstream daily newspapers regularly replaced their lead paragraph with poetic verses employing all manner of eloquence and rhetoric to win the affection of the reader and sway a political argument.
Political and social themes From the end of the 19th century, the rise to prominence of talented radical poets
Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi (1863–1936) and
Ma'ruf al-Rusafi (1875–1945) popularized poetry containing social and political themes. According to Khulusi, both al-Zahawi and al-Rusafi learned from contemporary Turkish poets, such as Tawfiq Fikrat, the value of charging poetry with powerful messages. Al-Rusafi was the more ferocious and shocking in his political attacks, while Zahawi's ire was directed at what he believed to be outdated social attitudes. Al-Zahawi's poetry extolling a utopian society was his attempt to set the agenda for a social revolution, particularly on views towards women in post-Ottoman Iraq. According to Khulusi, this was largely unwelcomed at the time, but proved nonetheless influential as a catalyst for change in the decades that followed. Khulusi renders the incendiary work including what he calls “Zahawi's tirade against the veil”: :
O Daughter of Iraq! tear the veil into pieces, :
And go about unveiled, for life demands revolutions. :
Tear it and burn it without delay :
For indeed it is a false guardian. Khulusi illustrates al-Zahawi's attempt to introduce the concept of gender equality in his celebrated poem ''Ba'da alfi 'Am'' (A Thousand Years Hence): :
If you happen one day to see their women :
You will stand perplexed, like someone who has lost his sense :
They share with men their hard work briskly :
And they do their work ably and perfectly. :
They sit side by side with men in courts, :
And display ideas and thoughts that are so close to perfection. :
Amongst them are governors and generals :
Amongst them are soldiers and workers. :
Their marriage is none other than a contract :
It is observed by a couple so long as love endures. :
But the upbringing and education of their children :
is according to their law, the responsibility of their government :
Which is the Mother of all. As with al-Rusafi and al-Zahawi before him,
Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawahiri (1899–1997) also versified his challenge to the established attitudes towards women. He chose a less aggressive, more persuasive tone which Khulusi attempts to capture in this sample of his translation: :
We have merchandise that provides us with children :
We raise and lower its price according to financial crises. :
I found her in other nations as object of pride :
That brightens the house, the markets and the churches. According to Khulusi, al-Jawahiri takes up the cause of social exclusion and poverty from al-Rusafi. He illustrates the gulf in society by describing life in the houses and villas of the rich, built next to shanty dwellings where the deprived live in squalid conditions with their children and livestock. :
In those palaces and rich houses, :
Nights of dancing rakishly pass :
Where the legs of the beautiful ladies are bare. :
Liquors and wines are brought to them from East and West, :
From wherever they are distilled best. :
And only next door to them a woman lies on the ground :
Scorpions flirting with her flanks. In Khulusi view, al-Jawahiri was also “the poet of every revolutionary movement”. The
revolt of January 1948 was one example. He composed long epics on the subject, and elegized his brother, Ja'far al-Jawahiri who died during the revolt. The same year saw war in the Holy Land and Jawahiri directed his anger at Arab leaders who promoted themselves during this time as 'saviours of Palestine'. Khulusi tries to capture the tone of sarcasm of the original poem: :
He defeated the calamity with his handkerchief. :
Boastfully pretending, like a silly lad :
That his eyes burst with tears. Martial law in 1948 was officially a means to protect the military operations in Palestine and to save the rear of the Arab armies. According to Khulusi, the law was skilfully extended to deal with young men with liberal ideas. Living close by, al-Jawahiri regularly passed the prison gates in Baghdad and could see groups of young men, from all backgrounds and professions, being led inside, and relatives waiting for news of other men already taken. In his poem al-Jawahiri says: :
May you not wait for long. :
And may the shackled time hurry your steps forward :
So Balasim, give the teacher his due, :
And support him, for he has no supporter. :
If it be possible for a free man to prostrate himself in adoration, :
Then I would have been a prostrated slave to the teacher. Later in the same poem he adds prophetically: :
A future era will say of our present state of affairs :
With which we are being scorched: :
Curse thee you extinct era! Women and poetry Following al-Zahawi's death in 1936,
Salma al-Malaika (1908–1953) writing under the name Umm Nizar, enters the Iraqi literary scene. According to Khulusi, her first poem is also the very first to be published for any woman in Iraq and appropriately its al-Zahawi's elegy. :
When merciless death called on you, :
Poetry burst into tears to mourn :
The Iraqi nation, when it saw :
Your charming place vacant, :
O you who had brought back :
To the East its past glory, :
Which it had nearly forgotten but for you. Umm Nizar refers to al-Zahawi's poetry on the subject of emancipation. Khulusi records that al-Zahawi wrote about a fictitious character named Leila who is denied her rightful and equal place in society. Leila is intended to symbolize the Iraqi woman. Umm Nizar writes: :
Who is now to defend Leila: :
O thou who were her champion? :
We never thought that you would one day forsake her. :
When you were singing, you used to inspire even inanimate objects :
With feeling, intelligence and perception. According to Khulusi, Umm Nizar echoes al-Zahawi's message, calling on women to break the fetters of centuries and step forward as saviours of their country. He reports that the feminist
genre of her poetry adds a description of the status of women and their achievements during various periods of Islamic civilization. She details their intolerable position in 1930s and 40s Iraq, and describes in verse how the place of women has not only fallen far behind modern civilization, but far below where it had been in the Middle Ages. The following couplet affords a good example of Umm Nizar's style as depicted by Khulusi. :
We have become so used to weakness; :
And felt so contented and at home with our misfortune, :
That we do not aspire in our life to anything :
Save a skirt and a mirror! Umm Nizar is followed into print by a number of other women including her daughter
Nazik Al-Malaika, who writes emotional, imaginative and rebellious odes.
Lami'a 'Abbas 'Amara is noted for her humor and epigrammatic lines.
'Atika Wahbi al-Khazraji versifies the tragedy of
Majnoon Layla.
Fatina al-Naib, better known by her pen-name Saduf al-'Ubaydiyya, composes poetry for her own personal enjoyment rather than public acclaim and eventually finds that she has completed the contents of four volumes. Khulusi renders entire poems and extracts of this ground-breaking literary work and illustrates the range and versatility of these pioneering women. ==Selected publications==