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Nostalgia, My Enemy
New poetry by Iraqi poet Saadi Youssef, one of the major voices from the Arab world.The country we love was finished
before it was even born.The country we did not love has claimed the blood left in our veins. —from “A Desperate Poem”This book collects some of the best of Saadi Youssef’s most recent poems from the last decade, since the ongoing American-led war in his home country of Iraq. In direct, penetrating language, translated from the original Arabic by Sinan Antoon and Peter Money, Youssef’s poems dwell on the casualties of the war, the loss of his country, the role of the writer in exile, the atrocities of Saddam Hussein, and the inhumane acts perpetrated by American military at Abu Ghraib. What emerges is the powerful voice of a writer for whom “Poetry transforms in that intimate moment which combines the current and the eternal in a wondrous embrace.”
before it was even born.The country we did not love has claimed the blood left in our veins. —from “A Desperate Poem”This book collects some of the best of Saadi Youssef’s most recent poems from the last decade, since the ongoing American-led war in his home country of Iraq. In direct, penetrating language, translated from the original Arabic by Sinan Antoon and Peter Money, Youssef’s poems dwell on the casualties of the war, the loss of his country, the role of the writer in exile, the atrocities of Saddam Hussein, and the inhumane acts perpetrated by American military at Abu Ghraib. What emerges is the powerful voice of a writer for whom “Poetry transforms in that intimate moment which combines the current and the eternal in a wondrous embrace.”
- GenresPoetryMiddle EastFiction
96 pages, Paperback
First published November 13, 2012
4 people are currently reading
503 people want to read
About the author
سعدي يوسف
98 books129 followers 1934-سعدي يوسف ، شاعر عراقي ( Saadi Youssef )
ولد في ابي الخصيب، بالبصرة (العراق
اكمل دراسته الثانوية في البصرة
ليسانس شرف في آداب العربية
عمل في التدريس والصحافة الثقافية
تنقّل بين بلدان شتّى، عربية وغربية
شهد حروباً، وحروباً اهلية، وعرف واقع الخطر، والسجن، والمنفى
نال جوائز في الشعر: جائزة سلطان العويس، والجائزة الايطالية العالمية، وجائزة (كافافي) من الجمعية الهلّينية
وفي العام 2005 نال جائزة فيرونيا الإيطالية لأفضل مؤلفٍ أجنبيّ
عضو هيئة تحرير "الثقافة الجديدة"
عضو الهيئة الإستشارية لمجلة نادي القلم الدولي PEN International Magazine
عضو هيئة تحرير مساهم في مجلة بانيبال Banipalللأدب العربي الحديث
مقيم في المملكة المتحدة منذ 1999
ولد في ابي الخصيب، بالبصرة (العراق
اكمل دراسته الثانوية في البصرة
ليسانس شرف في آداب العربية
عمل في التدريس والصحافة الثقافية
تنقّل بين بلدان شتّى، عربية وغربية
شهد حروباً، وحروباً اهلية، وعرف واقع الخطر، والسجن، والمنفى
نال جوائز في الشعر: جائزة سلطان العويس، والجائزة الايطالية العالمية، وجائزة (كافافي) من الجمعية الهلّينية
وفي العام 2005 نال جائزة فيرونيا الإيطالية لأفضل مؤلفٍ أجنبيّ
عضو هيئة تحرير "الثقافة الجديدة"
عضو الهيئة الإستشارية لمجلة نادي القلم الدولي PEN International Magazine
عضو هيئة تحرير مساهم في مجلة بانيبال Banipalللأدب العربي الحديث
مقيم في المملكة المتحدة منذ 1999
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 14, 2013
I often get weirded out by the imagery in modern Arabic poetry. The stuff that gets pushed out there in anthologies and in the other places where I've have limited access to it, comes off like weird overblown high-school-girl imagery. Just take a look at a grave for New York by Adonis (although, to be fair, how can we ever know how much he was channelling Lorca in New York, which would pretty much let him off the hook.) I know this is my own fault for not looking deeper. But what you get usually is lazy literal translations of Nizar Qabbani and Mahmoud Darwish. Stuff like this:
On a mare made of your virtues, my soul weaves a natural sky made of your shadows, one chrysalis at a time.
Come on, tell me that doesn't sound like an 8th grader with black painted fingernails wrote that. I've only recently conceded that there is great touching Alltäglichkeit evoking Arabic poetry in reading Youssef Rakha's translations of Sargon Boulus. So this collection of Saadi Youssef's work came at a perfect time. It's beautiful. It's imagery is wild and uses bizarre archetypes but because the translation is able to place them in amongst the everyday feelings of quiet private poetry, it's authentic. Take this section from a poem describing his longing for Iraq:
يا ما كنتُ آمُـلُ أن أرى وجه العراقِ ضحىً
وأنْ أُرخي ضفائرَه المياهَ عليّ ،
أنْ أُرضي عرائسَ مائهِ بالدمع مِـلْـحاً
I so hoped to see Iraq’s face in the morning. To loosen water’s braids over me. To satisfy its mermaids with salty tears.
Mermaids?!?! Yeah, mermaids. It's cool. It fits. It makes sense. And it's because the translation team of Sinan Antoon & Peter Money are so delicate with the imagery that they can make it fit. I thought a lot while reading these poems about Youssef's exile in England, and the influence of place on the imagery. Take the word mermaid for example. It immediately brings to my mind as a reader in America all of the Americana portrayals of mermaids. I just read a graphic novel about mermaids and steamboats on the Hudson in the 1800's and the image from the book was what I immediately thought of. But what does a mermaid look like to an Iraqi from Basra? Something more mythological and austere? A woodblock print from the Galland edition of 1001 night? Something from a novel by Jurji Zaydan (I'm not sure if he ever wrote about corsairs in the Gulf, I may be confusing him with Abdul Aziz al-Mahmoud)? Or would British literature have flooded Basra in the 40's when Youssef was growing up and flavored his imagination as per mermaids? This one image, this visual point de capiton, you see it's all very serious when you be so bold as to translate poetry. I mean, they could have even translated it literally as brides of the sea.
But with all of these challenges, the translators pull off a book of poems that gives you perfectly Saadi Youssef, an isolated irrelevant (I only mean in the political sense, by which I only mean in the communist nostalgia sense) poet watching it rain outside his house in England.
On a mare made of your virtues, my soul weaves a natural sky made of your shadows, one chrysalis at a time.
Come on, tell me that doesn't sound like an 8th grader with black painted fingernails wrote that. I've only recently conceded that there is great touching Alltäglichkeit evoking Arabic poetry in reading Youssef Rakha's translations of Sargon Boulus. So this collection of Saadi Youssef's work came at a perfect time. It's beautiful. It's imagery is wild and uses bizarre archetypes but because the translation is able to place them in amongst the everyday feelings of quiet private poetry, it's authentic. Take this section from a poem describing his longing for Iraq:
يا ما كنتُ آمُـلُ أن أرى وجه العراقِ ضحىً
وأنْ أُرخي ضفائرَه المياهَ عليّ ،
أنْ أُرضي عرائسَ مائهِ بالدمع مِـلْـحاً
I so hoped to see Iraq’s face in the morning. To loosen water’s braids over me. To satisfy its mermaids with salty tears.
Mermaids?!?! Yeah, mermaids. It's cool. It fits. It makes sense. And it's because the translation team of Sinan Antoon & Peter Money are so delicate with the imagery that they can make it fit. I thought a lot while reading these poems about Youssef's exile in England, and the influence of place on the imagery. Take the word mermaid for example. It immediately brings to my mind as a reader in America all of the Americana portrayals of mermaids. I just read a graphic novel about mermaids and steamboats on the Hudson in the 1800's and the image from the book was what I immediately thought of. But what does a mermaid look like to an Iraqi from Basra? Something more mythological and austere? A woodblock print from the Galland edition of 1001 night? Something from a novel by Jurji Zaydan (I'm not sure if he ever wrote about corsairs in the Gulf, I may be confusing him with Abdul Aziz al-Mahmoud)? Or would British literature have flooded Basra in the 40's when Youssef was growing up and flavored his imagination as per mermaids? This one image, this visual point de capiton, you see it's all very serious when you be so bold as to translate poetry. I mean, they could have even translated it literally as brides of the sea.
But with all of these challenges, the translators pull off a book of poems that gives you perfectly Saadi Youssef, an isolated irrelevant (I only mean in the political sense, by which I only mean in the communist nostalgia sense) poet watching it rain outside his house in England.
Read
October 25, 2012I didn't want to like this book.
I saw that it was published in Minnesota and partially funded by state and federal agencies, and said to myself, "Self, why is an Iraqi poet being published like this?"
The truth is I don't know. I still don't know, but I'm glad it's been printed in a final form.
Youssef is touted as comparable to Adonis. I think they are both in tune with Middle Eastern culture, but the similarities end there. Youssef has a voice wholly his own.
If you read this book (I read an advanced copy that only has 74 pages) you must expect:
-- descriptions of the sex acts of a septuagenarian
-- constant Wikipedia searches for Islamic allusions and Middle Eastern geography
-- surprising friendships with squirrels
-- an authentic perspective you have never seen, with a voice you have never heard, before
As an Iraqi ex-patriot in Europe, Youssef appears to have a pained existence. There is an entire world of memories in his mind and opinions in his heart. He mixes them with his mundane present, far away. He doesn't hold back his raw emotions.
Read, but prepare to feel sadness; ignore, but at your peril.
I saw that it was published in Minnesota and partially funded by state and federal agencies, and said to myself, "Self, why is an Iraqi poet being published like this?"
The truth is I don't know. I still don't know, but I'm glad it's been printed in a final form.
Youssef is touted as comparable to Adonis. I think they are both in tune with Middle Eastern culture, but the similarities end there. Youssef has a voice wholly his own.
If you read this book (I read an advanced copy that only has 74 pages) you must expect:
-- descriptions of the sex acts of a septuagenarian
-- constant Wikipedia searches for Islamic allusions and Middle Eastern geography
-- surprising friendships with squirrels
-- an authentic perspective you have never seen, with a voice you have never heard, before
As an Iraqi ex-patriot in Europe, Youssef appears to have a pained existence. There is an entire world of memories in his mind and opinions in his heart. He mixes them with his mundane present, far away. He doesn't hold back his raw emotions.
Read, but prepare to feel sadness; ignore, but at your peril.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
November 4, 2020Honestly it doesn't seem to rate this. Poetry in translation is super tricky because a lot of the beauty of poetry comes from the play with language, from the sly witticisms, and from the knowing of what words say what and how. A lot of the beauty of Youssef's poetry is lost in translation--to the point that they were simply words on a page, adrift with nuance and context.
January 27, 2013
I was excited to win this book as it combines two things I love independently – poetry and Middle Eastern culture.
The majority of the poems are short (one pagers), which is my preferred length.
Like any poetry collection, some of the poems are better than others - some absolutely wowed me, while others left me disappointed. Of course keep in mind this collection was translated from Arabic (a very poetic language), so despite how skilled the translators may be, it’s likely there were nuances lost in translation.
What Saadi Youssef excels at is describing the beauty in seemingly simple observations – a spiderweb, peeling paint on a ceiling, a boat on the shore, a bee landing on his shirt, a homeless man feeding a squirrel. Convincing the reader of that beauty is really what makes a poet successful. Although not every poem affected me in this way, there were enough to convince me that Saadi Youssef is indeed a significant voice.
Other standouts:
• The title poem, Oh Nostalgia: My Enemy
• Making Love
• Listening
The majority of the poems are short (one pagers), which is my preferred length.
Like any poetry collection, some of the poems are better than others - some absolutely wowed me, while others left me disappointed. Of course keep in mind this collection was translated from Arabic (a very poetic language), so despite how skilled the translators may be, it’s likely there were nuances lost in translation.
What Saadi Youssef excels at is describing the beauty in seemingly simple observations – a spiderweb, peeling paint on a ceiling, a boat on the shore, a bee landing on his shirt, a homeless man feeding a squirrel. Convincing the reader of that beauty is really what makes a poet successful. Although not every poem affected me in this way, there were enough to convince me that Saadi Youssef is indeed a significant voice.
Other standouts:
• The title poem, Oh Nostalgia: My Enemy
• Making Love
• Listening
November 4, 2012
Saadi Youssef is a powerful writer. Born in iraq, he now lives in London. His words convey the longing and pain of a man exiled form his homeland, hungry for peace, brokenhearted over the conditions of his people.
His words are the words of a man who is able to tenderly articulate an ache, words that will make you wonder what is in the mind of the next quiet man you see across from you on the subway. He also writes of the beauty in the light, the bird's wing, the movement of water.
I was very happy to receive a copy of this book through a Goodreads First Reads giveaway; what I read was an uncorrected proof. (Since I am beginning to learn Arabic, I admit to a slight disappointment when I realized that the volume did not include the Arabic text. I look forward, one day after much study, to reading his words in Arabic.)
His words are the words of a man who is able to tenderly articulate an ache, words that will make you wonder what is in the mind of the next quiet man you see across from you on the subway. He also writes of the beauty in the light, the bird's wing, the movement of water.
I was very happy to receive a copy of this book through a Goodreads First Reads giveaway; what I read was an uncorrected proof. (Since I am beginning to learn Arabic, I admit to a slight disappointment when I realized that the volume did not include the Arabic text. I look forward, one day after much study, to reading his words in Arabic.)
November 29, 2012
A beautifully constructed collection. By turns serene and haunting, these poems are dense with image and emotion (as poems are wont to be, no?). One can feel the stagnation of life in 'Still Life', longing in 'O Nostalgia: My Enemy', and the frustration of recapitulation, repetition and routine in 'The Concerns of a Man, 2000 B.C.'. I had some ire-induced reflux while reading 'The Wretched of the Heavens'.
While I have quite a rocky history with poetry (I am partial to prose) I do like to think I can at least spot a "good" poem when it smacks me in the face; I believe this little book has hit me about the brow so many times that I will be red for a week.
Book received for free through Goodreads First Reads.
While I have quite a rocky history with poetry (I am partial to prose) I do like to think I can at least spot a "good" poem when it smacks me in the face; I believe this little book has hit me about the brow so many times that I will be red for a week.
Book received for free through Goodreads First Reads.
May 14, 2013
Won as part of the Goodreads first reads program.
Poetry is a particularly subjective art-form. Either you connect with it, or you don't. I wanted to like this collection, but ultimately it left me feeling cold. There was nothing that particularly spoke to me, no poems I'll feel compelled to return to. I do not expect that this will be the case for everyone however. Writing poetry is an intensely personal experience, so is reading it. I believe there are people out there to whom this collection will speak strongly. I simply wasn't one of them.
Poetry is a particularly subjective art-form. Either you connect with it, or you don't. I wanted to like this collection, but ultimately it left me feeling cold. There was nothing that particularly spoke to me, no poems I'll feel compelled to return to. I do not expect that this will be the case for everyone however. Writing poetry is an intensely personal experience, so is reading it. I believe there are people out there to whom this collection will speak strongly. I simply wasn't one of them.
February 6, 2014
To say the imagery in this book is beautiful, or that it is moving is not enough. Go read Saadi Youssef's words. Iraq as he knew is long gone, Iraq as friends knew a decade ago is gone, but there is still that love and that longing only people who are forced from home can really feel and understand. It is not an overtly emotional book of poetry, but the resilience of humanity very prevalent in almost every page.
October 21, 2015
Me gusto el tema de la perdida que se plantea Youssef y si bien en su caso se refiere a su patria me parece que esta patria no es tanto un concepto politico sino algo muy personal mas allá de las fronteras.
October 23, 2012
I would only waste words attempting to describe the beauty (and sadness) in this book of verse. I highly recommend it!
January 29, 2013
enjoyed the majority of them, but some I just couldnt finish.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews