Nazik al-Mala'ika in "Splinters and Ashes"

The first thing that strikes you in Nazik al-Mala'ika is that she is a poetess who has given herself over to the study of the two cultures, Arabic and Western — and in particular of English literature, in which some critics see the finest models of European poetry, while others see in it a clear mirror reflecting the distillation of Western civilization, descended from the very heart of the civilization of the Greeks.

We feel her mastery of the language in this poetic gift, so rich in poetic diction both old and new; you observe that she has possessed herself of the secret of finding the fitting word, that she is skilled in discovering words and setting them in place, and that she has made attempts at creating them — in this she is like the artist who sees himself a creator before he is an artist.

And you see her deep application to the study of the literatures of the Westerners in her allusions to their literatures and their myths and her drawing of inspiration from some of their poets; in her sweeping revolt against the rigidity of Arabic poetry and its fetters; in her adoption of most of the methods of modern European poetry — variation and invention in meter and rhyme, strong cohesion between the parts, and the turning to account of the theories of symbol, obscurity, and the subconscious mind; and in her style there is a boldness, a subjectivity, and a freedom that bring it near the level of pure poetry.

You sense that Nazik al-Mala'ika is a poetess in her blood and her spirit: she lives by poetry and lives for it, and has made it her absorbing occupation and her first profession. It is no wonder that the gifted poet Omar Abu Risha should declare poetry to be his craft, for talent avails nothing without unceasing diligence and persistent work joining night to day. Yet art is jealous: it permits no other to occupy the artist's heart, and it insists that its devotee melt his very soul as an offering upon its altar.

If Arabic poetry has left a mark on the collection "Splinters and Ashes," it is that captivating music which distinguishes Arabic poetry old and new, and which is strengthened here by the variety of meters and rhymes and by the unevenness of the parts — some long and extended, some short, sounding after them like echoes. In all else there is liberation and a free handling of the meters, and a complete renewal in subjects and titles, in images and expressions, in thought and style.

Most of the poems dispense with the system of the two hemistichs that follows the old manner, and most of them end on the quiescent rhyme. The poetess has a fondness for repetition and verbal refrain; for the short meter, because it is more suggestive and more concentrated; and for long-drawn passages, extended like the pain and the longing in her soul.

Take us back, O train...
For the expanse is vast and the road is long
And the nights are short...

Her poetry teems with pulsing images, full of gesture and glimmer, movement and color: the meanings of sins that flash with the flash of the stars, whose touch is scorching flame, and the color of sorrows...

The poems are distinguished by a strong unity, just as the whole collection is a unity of tightly joined parts, bound together by the meanings of pain, revolt, anxiety, perplexity, questioning, lost hope, and longing for the unknown — the meanings of the romantic poetess turned in upon herself, who cannot escape her own subjectivity because she is still at the beginning of the road, and who for this reason prefers solitude and darkness:

Put out the candle and leave us two strangers here
We are two parts of the night — what meaning has the light?

But at times she slips free of the bonds of self, and her poetry bursts forth as a hymn glittering with colors, hushed with wonder and awe before the rocks of Sarsank and its icy springs. And her voice rises, human and universal, in the poem "Let Us Be Friends" — and there is the cry of humanity, complaining of deadly loneliness and yearning for a world ruled over by tenderness and brotherhood.

I loved her poem "The Train Passed," brimming with the images, sounds, and epithets that compose the atmosphere of the train as it folds up the long Iraqi distances; and I loved the poem "The Thread Tied to the Cypress Tree," for the fresh picturing and the deep intimations it contains.

In sum, the poetry of Nazik al-Mala'ika is a sweet breath and a new light in the sky of Iraq, and it is the emancipated woman's proof against those, men and women alike, who would smother her talents and shut away her liberties.

And we hope for every good from her youthful activity, not for the Iraqi woman alone but for the Eastern woman generally; and we salute in her the poetess of lofty culture and thought, who has chosen to draw her inspiration from the highest human ideals.

Every hand waving in eagerness and gloom
Every hand a heart
And there is a deep whisper
Lurking behind every road

In the trembling of the pines in the pale village
In the howl of the jackal and in the setting stars...