Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawahiri

“The poetry of Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawahiri has penetrated the Arab soul, in Iraq, gradually and with ease for more than forty years of Iraq's modern history. It has become a part of the emotional, intellectual, and political experience of the entire nation no matter how much individuals differ in their attitudes toward the poet himself... He is more like the voice of the nation's conscience.”

“He [al-Jawahiri] played an important role through his poetry in the political scene of his time, inciting public emotions against political decadence and compromise, and subsequently suffering oppression and exile.”

“It is regrettable that only a very few poems or excerpts of his works have been translated into English. This is due in large measure to the fact that his poetry draws, as indicated earlier, on a rich legacy of rhetorical usages, allusions, and other devices which are not easily translatable. The fact that his poetry is highly political and that he was openly critical of the West has undoubtedly contributed to his marginal place in, or even total absence from, Western works on modern Arabic literature.”

“Muhmmad al-Jawahiri's poetry is highly charged with emotion and the explosive nature of his violent and often original imagery has an almost physical impact on his reader, with the result that the poet's anger at social injustice, political corruption and the degradation of man becomes infectious and reaches a degree of intensity that is at times truly terrifying.”

“While [others] were poets of words, he was the poet of action.”

“What further wishes and desires / do you seek from lifeHave you been offered / to see all your dreams come trueAnd the mighty hands were / willing to satisfy youBut you love to suffer / like the pious’ love for adhān.”

“They boast that a towering tyrannical wavehas blocked the path to every outlet and escapeBut they lie, for my verses fill the mouth of timeendlessly traversing from the east to the westTearing them from their youth and dropping themto their fate, destroying their grand palace of liesFor I am their death, bringing their houses upon them,inciting even doormen and babies to curse their name!”

“سلى الحوادث و التاريخ هل عرفا     حقا ورأيا بغير القوة احترما”

“أكلما عصفت بالشعب عاصفة     هوجاء نستصرخ القرطاس و القلماهل أنقذ الشام كتاب بما كتبوا     أو شاعر صان بغدادا بما نظما”

“Do you know or do you not knowthat the wounds of victims are a mouth?”

“O Damascus, be strong in the face of hardships / as gold being melted many times but never burns out.”