Flowers of Flame Poetry Reading Review

I found attending Haider Al-Kabi’s poetry reading here on campus a very interesting and educating experience. Mr. Al-Kabi was born in 1954 in Basar, Iraq and was exiled to America during the first gulf war. He is now a professor of Arabic and Spanish here in the United States. He is the translator of many of the poems in the collection Flowers of Flame. Although he read about ten poems in the time he was here, one in particular stood out to me. His reading of the poem “Tomorrow the war will have a picnic” by Abdul Razaq Al-Rubaiee was powerful in a way I wasn’t quite prepared for. In reading or hearing the poem, we see through Iraqi eyes several events in the most recent war there. The combination of the way that the poem was read and the wording of the poem made it stick with me.

I found it interesting that the title was repeated several times throughout the poem to emphasize the way the Iraqi people saw the American “shock and awe” campaign in Baghdad and the effect it had on the civilian people. People knew and accepted what was going to happen and tried to prepare themselves as much as possible for what they were about to go through. The author uses phrases such as “prepare bodies for pain” to show this. There are also times in the poem where you sense almost a mocking tone to it, saddening in a way that we realize that the people knew there was no way to avoid it. I found this in the title, almost as if the “shock and awe” would just like a day in the park. The author also tells the reader to make and easy, clear, beautiful path for the bombs to make their way and to not fight it. As much as they were prepared, it would still, as it would for any human being “break mother’s hearts,” and the people would need to “empty salty streams” of tears.

This poem brought on a new perspective of the war and of this day in particular. I’ve always heard about it from the American point of view, and it brings about new feelings that I didn’t expect. Looking around the room, I could tell that I was not the only one to be experiencing these new emotions toward the subject. I was surprised to find not only my own eyes tearing up but also the eyes of everyone else listening, professors and students included. The way the poet read the poem so effectively and passionately, it was impossible to not feel for the Iraqi people, regardless of anyone’s political views.

Looking into the poet’s background really helped me to get into the poetry more because it was so personal for him and so fresh in his mind. Also, his form of reading helped because he read with emotion and an understanding that could only come from having the emotions himself. Although he was not the author of the poem, he has a similar background. His reading was powerful and definitely gave me a lot to think about.