Review Flowers Of Flame, Unheard Voices of Iraq

Mohammed, Sadek, Najm, Soheil, Al-Kabi, Haider, Veach, Dan, Edited by, Flowers Of Flame, Unheard Voices of Iraq, East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2008

 

Flowers Of Flame, Unheard Voices of Iraq is a collection of poems by Iraqis from the 1990s-2000s. As the editors noted they deal with “injustice, war, isolation, alienation, exile, poverty, the will to live in the face of death, and the yearning for beauty.” At first the pieces focus upon the violence during the U.S. occupation but then expand to other topics such as love, dreams, the desire for freedom, and more. It’s a very short read that showed war and deprivation couldn’t stop art.

 

The first set of poems are all about the aftermath of the 2003 invasion. In “The Heart Of A Woman” Lateef Helmet wrote, “The heart of a woman is the only country that does not heap up heavy weapons Nor force its citizens to fight its wars.” Razzaq al-Rubaiee in “Tomorrow The War Will Have A Picnic” said:

 

Tomorrow the war will have a picnic:

Abandon delicacy,

Laughter,

Dancing,

Childhood,

Women,

Beds,

Cups of tea and milk,

Classroom desks,

And what’s left of dreams

Splintered in corners.

No more chocolate,

No more kissing in public –

Things like these

Are not good for the health of war,

Which is having a picnic tomorrow

 

After that the topics become more varied. There’s one on the cult of personality surrounding Saddam and how his picture was everywhere when he author was growing up. In “Brine On The Wings Of Seagulls” Abd al-Hassan al-Shathr compares an ancient African slave revolt in Basra with the desire to be free in modern day Iraq.

 

It's a nice anthology and very short so it can be read in one session. Iraqi voices are rarely heard in English books on Iraq and art is obviously neglected for stories about war. If you’d like to vary you diet in reading about Iraq Flowers Of Flame would be a nice alternative.

 

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