Project Description
Adnan al-Sayegh
Adnan al-Sayegh was born in Iraq in 1955 and is one of the most original voices of his generation of poets. His poetry denounces the devastation of wars and the horrors of dictatorship.. He left his homeland in 1993, lived in Amman, and Beirut then took refuge in Sweden in 1996. Since 2004 he has been living in exile in London. He has published 12 collections and won several international awards. his poetry had been translated into 6 languages. and has been invited to read his poems in many festivals across the world. His bi-lingual collection is entitled Pages from the Biography of an Exile (Arc).
Agamemnon
He came back
from the dusts of war
and a wounded heart, his
arms full with drums & gold
dreaming of Clytemnestra’s
honeyed lips that at that very
moment Aegisthus was melting
with his own, as every night.
And as he opened the door
He sensed on her lips’ grease
the thousands of corpses he’d
abandoned under the open sky
& recalled how he’d forgotten
to leave his own body there.
Baghdad 14th January 1993