Locales and Their Implications in the Poetry of Yahya al-Samawi

Locale is one of the most important elements of poetry. In resistance literature, places have different semantic functions, depending on the emotions of the writer towards those places. These places are sometimes reminiscent of nostalgic childhood memories and a relief from the current pain and alienation, and sometimes express the poet’s intense interest in or hatred for the characters or events that are related to these places. Because resistance poets reflect the actual events of their lives and societies, and as they themselves have deeply felt the difficulties of resisting oppression and tyranny and have faced the difficulties of exile and persecution, the element of locale is prominent in their poetry. Yahya al-Samawi, a contemporary Iraqi poet, was one of the pioneers of Arabic poetry and one of the members of the Intifada in southern Iraq against the Baathist regime in 1991. Since then, as a result of his political stance, he has lived far from his homeland in exile. His experiences during the Iraqi Baath regime and his emigration followed by the occupation of Iraq by Americans led al-Samawi to pay special attention to Iraq and its cities. Therefore, the element of place is of great importance in his poetry. He consciously makes use of places in his poems to express different feelings such as love, homesickness, hatred, and praise, to recall his good memories and heal his pains, and to resist the oppressors and liberate his homeland. Therefore, this paper adopts a descriptive-analytical method to examine this element and its implications in his poetry.