Poetry · A way to begin
أنشودة المطر
Not translated into English
Badr Shakir al-Sayyab · 1960
Synopsis
The collection brings together the great poems of the fifties. In the song that gives it its title, the rain falling on the palm trees brings only sadness: it brings back the memory of the dead mother, who was said to be returning the day after tomorrow, and the observation that there is no year without hunger in Iraq. Other poems revive the myths of death and rebirth, Tammuz and Ishtar of Babylon or Christ after the crucifixion, and express nostalgia for the native village of Jaykour in the face of Baghdad.
Context
The collection appeared in 1960; its title poem had been published as early as June 1954 in the Beirut review al-Adab. Critics have compared this poem to T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land for its use of myth, and have seen in the book the first major entry of Babylonian myth into modern Arabic poetry. A selection of the author's poems appeared in French in 1977, translated by André Miquel under the title Le Golfe et le fleuve.
Who it is for
In Arabic, in free verse based on the metrical foot; no French or English translation of the whole collection.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as one of the major events of contemporary Arabic poetry; the book became the poetic identity card of its author.