Trees of Words - Poetry Selections
The book came with 263 pages and its back cover included excerpts from the joint introduction written by the three critics:
"Adnan al-Sayegh shone as a distinguished poet who attracted the attention of a number of critics in the early eighties (...) a poet who 'came out of the war by mistake' but paid the price for that by falling prey to its nightmares, memories and terrifying anxiety (...) Alongside two styles that were prevalent at that time, al-Sayegh's poems fell under a third style. The first style is classical Arabic poetry, including that which is preoccupied with beating the drums of war and mobilizing for festivals of death. The second style is the prose poem, preoccupied with beating the drums of language and mobilizing for festivals of sound. The third style is the poetry of Adnan al-Sayegh and a small group of Iraqi poets who stood between the two camps, writing in a language that reveals its meanings (...) so his poems were associated with life in its noisy movement in war, siege, migration and the life of exile..."
"Adnan al-Sayegh shone as a distinguished poet who attracted the attention of a number of critics in the early eighties (...) a poet who 'came out of the war by mistake' but paid the price for that by falling prey to its nightmares, memories and terrifying anxiety (...) Alongside two styles that were prevalent at that time, al-Sayegh's poems fell under a third style. The first style is classical Arabic poetry, including that which is preoccupied with beating the drums of war and mobilizing for festivals of death. The second style is the prose poem, preoccupied with beating the drums of language and mobilizing for festivals of sound. The third style is the poetry of Adnan al-Sayegh and a small group of Iraqi poets who stood between the two camps, writing in a language that reveals its meanings (...) so his poems were associated with life in its noisy movement in war, siege, migration and the life of exile..."
