Poems: Dunya Mikhail

Here are two poems from the 2005 collection The War Works Hard, which gathers selections from three volumes of poems by the young (1965-) and very talented Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail. I chose two of the shortest poems, which give some hints of her ability to capture the gravity, with the simplest materials, of both the tenuous humanity and the continuously unfolding tragedy that has marked her native country since the most recent war began, but I strongly recommend the full collection, which gives a fuller view of her gifts as a poet; the sarcastic, sad, moving title poem is one that should be read and entered into the record at the next press conference that our Disaster-in-Chief deigns to deliver. Mikhail now lives is the Detroit area, so I hope that we can bring her to the university at some point in the near(er) future.

THE ROCKING CHAIR

When they came,
the aunt was still there
on the rocking chair.
For thirty years
she rocked...
Now
that death has asked for her hand,
she has departed
without a word,
leaving the chair
alone
rocking

A VOICE

I want to return
return
return
return
repeated the parrot
in the room where
her owner had left her
alone
to repeat:
return
return
return . . .

Copyright © Dunya Mikhail, from The War Works Hard, 2005. All rights reserved, New Directions Publishing Corporation.