Flowers of Flame

A Translated Modern Iraqi Poetic Anthology Published by Michigan State University Press with introductions by the translators and Dan Veach, the founder of Poetry Atlanta and Editor of Atlanta Review. His anthology Flowers of Flame is the first collection of Iraqi poetry since the American invasion of Iraq.

Dan Veach

Despite years of war and tsunamis of sound bites, this will be the first
opportunity many readers will have to meet Iraqis as real human
beings, speaking heart to heart. In these pages you will hear the unheard
voices of Iraq: men and women, Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds.
Th ese poems were collected, as the war raged all around them, by
Iraqis living and working in Baghdad. Th is is their message to the world,
one that transcends all the barriers dividing present-day Iraq. It is a message
that needs to be heard by all sides in the current conflict.
Iraq’s poets have suff ered imprisonment, exile, and death for the
truths they have dared to tell. Poetry is not a luxury in Iraq, but a vital
part of the struggle for the nation’s future. Th is is poetry that is feared by
tyrants and would-be tyrants.
How do they do it? How is it even possible to write poetry in presentday
Iraq? One poet asks himself, “How can you extract poems and shrapnel
from your chest at the very same time?” Th e answers that you’ll find
here will amaze you—a “perfect storm” of international headline news,
profound humanity, and genuinely great art.
You’ll find joy here as well as struggle. Arabic poetry has a long and
rich tradition of ecstatic love, whimsical humor, and philosophic insight.
Remarkably, charm and lightness of touch abound. Even the war invites
you to a picnic—from which you will not return untouched.
Th ese poems form a continuous “conversation,” each one speaking
to and illuminating those around it. Th e subjects taken up in turn are war,
love, the daily life of the people, and the inner life of the artist. An Iraqi
emergency room physician in Baghdad, someone who has surely seen
the worst of the current conflict, recently read this collection in English.
When he told us that these poems had brought him to tears, I knew that
we had captured at least a little of the truth about Iraq.