Muzaffar al-Nawwab

Muzaffar al-Nawwab Poems

Muzaffar al-Nawwab Biography

[Muzaffar al-Nawwab (b. Baghdad, 1934) is one of Iraq’s most famous and influential poets. He studied literature in Baghdad and worked as a teacher. He joined the Iraqi Communist Party at a very early age and was imprisoned and tortured under the Ba’th. He left Iraq in 1970 and lived in exile until 2011 when he returned to Baghdad for a visit. Al-Nawwab is well known in Iraq and throughout the Arab world, especially among leftists and activist of various generations, for his powerful revolutionary poems and scathing invectives against Arab regimes and dictators. Banned in most Arab countries, his poems circulated widely from the 1970s onward on cassettes. They are widely available nowadays on the Internet. He is also considered one of the most innovative and influential Iraqi poets who composed in the spoken dialect. Although born to an aristocratic family in Baghdad, Al-Nawwab immersed himself in the dialect of southern Iraq in the 1960s and composed some of the most memorable poems in Iraqi collective memory, many of which were put to music and sung by famous contemporary singers. Except for a few editions of his early poems in the Iraqi spoken, Al-Nawwab, who shunned mainstream cultural circles and lived in various exiles for the last four decades, never published, or authorized, a collection of his own works. A critical edition, or any reliable printed diwan (there are many versions and unauthorized collections, in circulation) has yet to appear. “In the Old Tavern” is one of his most famous poems, composed (probably) in late 1970s. Al-Nawwab prefaced one of his famous recitals by saying that the obscenity of the political status quo exceeded the obscenity in his poems. Al-Nawwab’s health has deteriorated in recent years and he has not written any new poems. He lives in Beirut.”)

The Best Poem Of Muzaffar al-Nawwab

Jerusalem Is Arab Nationalism's Bride

Excerpts from the fiery poem: -
Oh my country, exhibited at the market as a morning star
They are lamenting you in the night brothels
And some revolutionaries are perfecting their manhood
Joggling at the [noise of the] drum and trumpet
Those are your enemies, my country
Who sold Palestine other than your enemies, O my country?
Who by God, sold Palestine and accumulated a wealth
Other than the list of beggars at the ruler's thresholds
And at the Great Powers' tables?
As soon as the night put on its veils
The cups crack avowing Jerusalem is your Arab Nationalism's Bride
Ahlan(welcome)…Ahlan(welcome)
Who sold Palestine other than the pen's revolutionaries?
I have sworn by the bottlenecks of wine, though the cup full only of Poison
And by this indigested revolutionary by the sea-oysters
In Beirut
Building a big belly till he lost his neck
I have sworn by the history of starvation and the day of famine
Not a single Arab would ever last if we remained at this
Predicament
Among the profiteering rulers
Jerusalem is the bride of your Arab Nationalism
Why you brought in her room all the night's adulterers
And you remained behind the doors eavesdropping
Hearing the screams of her virginity
Then you drew all your daggers, bragging
Yelling at her to hush lest her honor is blemished

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