The characters of Sayab fall in Basra

Ammar Al Saleh - Basrah

Ali Salman, who came to Basra (southern Iraq), did not find the poetic phrase that he used to read with reverence before the monument of poet Badr Shaker al-Sayyab: "The sun is the most beautiful in my country and the darkness ... even darkness is more beautiful than embracing Iraq."

Ali is one of the visitors and expatriates who visit the monument in the city of Basra to remember the life of the poet and singing his poems.

Free Hair School
Badr Shaker al-Sayyab (1926-1964) is one of the founders of the free poetry in Arabic literature and one of the most famous poets. He was born in the village of Jikur south of Basra. He presented many poetic works. His poems became part of the curriculum. Some of them became poems. To his homeland and village.

Ali Salman, a young man from the northern part of Basra who visited Sayab, said: "I did not find what I was seeing from this vision of this great poet embodied in his statue that was erected on the Shatt al-Arab.

Ali is still at odds with his peers to memorize the poems he learned in his rural school north of Basra or from poems he read in the poet's works. In it, Sayab represented the most important poetic trends of his time.

Poems fell letters
In spite of this, the local role was limited to the commemoration of the poet by erecting a monument that unveiled his current statue in 1972 to include after it the restoration projects that fell with the name of Sayab and the letters of his poems.

"The Sayab monument was one of the signs of consciousness in the seventies of the last century," says poet Furat Saleh. "It is a masterpiece that demonstrates aesthetic taste and reflects the awareness of the local community at the time. "He said.

He believes that "new generations do not realize the importance of Sayab, and perhaps consider it just a statue decorating the Shatt al-Arab Corniche, and contributed to this is the shy literary activities that dealt with the poet."

Furat finds that "Sayab deserves a lot not in the measurements of the present, because Arab poetry is progressing a lot, but according to the years he lived."

The director of the Cultural House in Basra Abdul-Haq Al-Muzaffar that "interest in the establishment of the poet Badr Shaker Al-Sayyab went towards the preservation of floors and other facilities without attention to the statue itself and the character of Sayab itself."

He said that "the sponsorship of Sayyib al-Sayab requires the introduction of modernity by providing sophisticated means so that visitors can read and hear the poems of the poet and acquaint them with his personality and his life and literary achievement."

Gharba al-Sayab in his homeland
Al-Muzaffar confirmed that the Sayab family is frustrated by this deteriorating reality. He finds that "to commemorate Sayab with what he deserves requires the establishment of a center like the Goethe-Institut, which founded the writer Johann Goethe and became a cultural Germany."

While the local government of Basra has pledged to address the shortcomings and damage caused to the monument of the poet Jassad al-Sayab in his home in the last of his poetry, saying:
"Let me down, you, drops, blood, money
O wind, O Abraham, sew me the sail, when I return
to Iraq? When will I come back? "