ALLAH KARIM 253
LETTERS 264
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. PRESIDENT 276
AHEM, ACUFF,A POEM 286
ALL THINGS MUST PASS 304
WE ARE SEVEN 319
MAKING CONTACT 329
THE WHITE OF PARADISE 334
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THE WIDE STREETS OF BASRA are dusty and strewn with litter.Rubbish blows across the cracked, uneven pavement, and the noise of the city fills the air. Curbstones, painted yellow and
white, are worn and broken from years of use. Although it is the middle of the day, the thoroughfares are busy. Traffic light suspended from sagging wires, above, change fitfully from red to green and back again. The army patrols and battered Toyotas
driving past ignore them, using their horns to alert oncoming drivers. The city is poised and expectant. Carrying his khaki knapsack, packed with bottles of spring water, his tape recorder, newspapers, and a pocket guidebook Ahmed Goda, a journalist writing for the respected
international Arabic newspaper Asharg Alwsat, treads carefully. His eyes roam the dilapidated apartment blocks and commercial buildings of the country’s second city. The sun is high and the
skies clear and blue, yet it feels to him like another world. One of the first wave of foreign journalists to enter the city, he is taking his first tentative steps in post-liberation Iraq. Although some people seem cautious and subdued, most shops have raised their iron security grilles and occasionally
Ahmed catches a face peering at him from within. He imagines that in less extraordinary times, the tide of people and traffic on these city streets would be overwhelming, with vegetable traders, stationery sellers, hardware shops, furniture stores .......They were beaten, tortured, and left for dead. I talked to him just before I came here and he told me he is happy I can make this trip
to write honestly about the situation here.”
“Pah! A million cowards have fled this place.” The angry man
spits back at him. “They were the lucky ones.”
“No, no. This man was a poet. His name is Nabeel Yasin.”
Ahmed grasps frantically at anything that might save him.
“Though he has suffered, he would consider me a friend.”
Remembering times spent with Nabeel at the Kufa Gallery in London and at the newspaper, Ahmed shares other facts that might ring true. “He wrote a poem called ‘Brother Yasin.’ He was
put on Saddam’s blacklist ...an Enemy of the State.” He closes his eyes and waits for the crowd to surge forward, but no one moves. He hears silence. Unsure of what is happening he opens
his eyes.
The spokesman is quelling the commotion. His face registers recognition
“ “Brother Yasin, ” he says, raising his voice to the crowd. “I know it. He talks of the man who wrote “Brother Yasin’ and Brother Yasin Again.’ >»” Suddenly the man pulls away from the
others and begins to recite:
Here I stand in life’s desert,
Composing a song to pass the evening
Holding my questions in my hands,
I am the last wretched wise man in a time
that detests wise men
I am the last one clutching the dying embers
as the fire burns out
Iam the last to burn

Amal al-Jubouri is an Iraqi poet, activist and human rights lawyer. She has published numerous poetic works and films, including the award-winning Hagar Before the Occupation, Hagar After the Occupation, translated by Rebecca Gayle Howell with Husam Qaisi. In 1989 she founded the publishing house Al Masar (now East West Diwan), translating international literature into Arabic, and published the first Arabic anthology of contemporary English poetry. In 1997, Al-Jubouri took political asylum with her daughter in Munich, Germany where she published her third poetry collection, This Body is Yours, Do Not Fear for My Sake and won the Silver Prize in aesthetics from the Beirut Book Fair. Her exile made her a major force for literary activism between the Middle East and the West. In 2000, she organized the first Arabic-German poetry conference in Yemen, and was subsequently invited to be the Cultural Counselor for the Yemeni government, a role she held for 11 years. She founded the only Arabic-German poetry magazine, Diwan. In 2000, the Ba’ath Party published in Babel and Al Zawraa a register of the regime’s enemies and her name was first on the list. Al-Jubouri also founded the Diwan Poetry Prize, which awards the best unpublished Arabic collection in each year, in 2005, and the Iraqi PEN in Damascus in 2007. Amal al-Jubouri’s poems have been translated into ten different languages. In addition to currently writing her memoir, Amal works in Iraq and London promoting human rights and continues to publish poetry. Visit her website for more information.
Other poems by this author



My solitude, to which I always returned
City that kept my secret religion in her libraries

I came back to rest my head on her shoulder
and with just one look, she saw how tired I was
She wrapped her gardens, her fragrance, around me
She warmed me and in her eyes I saw
how stupid I’d been
My poems were tears that reached my beloved
long before I did

Lion of Babylon
A metre or two from the river sits the Lion of Babylon.
No bench,
no child,
no garden,
nor tower in the vicinity.
As people pass
not noticing him
he shakes his head regretfully
repeating the same thing.
No-one hears a thing, or
if they do, they ignore it:
‘I am the Lion of Babylon,
the Lion of Babylon,
the Lion...’

وينتشر الميتونض ويعلو الضجيج