Fatherhood
Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen
Poems
Seaview Press
South Australia, Australia 2009
Author: Kamal Ad-Deen, Adeeb
Title: Fatherhood- Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen
Cover photograph was taken by Shamsaldin Hama
About the Author
Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen (Iraq -1953) is a poet, journalist and translator who has degrees in Economics and English Literature from the University of Baghdad plus a Diploma of Interpreting (Arabic-English) from Adelaide Institute of TAFE, South Australia. He has published ten poetry collections and won the major prize of Iraqi poetry in 1999. His poetry has been translated into many languages and reviewed by many Iraqi, Tunisian, Lebanese, Palestinian, Yemeni and Moroccan critics and published in "Man of Letters: 33 critics write about Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen's poetry" (edited by Dr. Migdad Rahim). He has translated into Arabic short stories and poems from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, China and the USA.
Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen now lives in Australia as an Australian citizen and was a special guest at Friendly Street Poets in Adelaide in 2004 and at the Gallery de la Catessen in Adelaide in 2006. Some of his featured poems have been published in "The Best Australian Poems 2007" (edited by Peter Rose) and in many Australian websites, magazines and books, such as "Southerly", "Meanjin" and "Friendly Street Poets.
His website: www.adeebk.com
Translated by Professor Aabdulwahed Muhammed and the poet.
Acknowledgment
-The poems: "Boredom", "An Attempt at Remembrance", "An Attempt at Music" and "Time Runs, Time Drowns" appeared in "Southerly" Magazine (Vol .64, No. 1, 2004), (edited by Rosie Scott and Thomas Keneally).
-"An Attempt at the Bullet" appeared in " "Friendly Street Poets: Thirty" (edited by Louise Nicholas and Rob Walker) 2005 and appeared as Featured Poem in Friendly Street Poets' website.
- "Theft" appeared in "Southerly" Magazine (Vol. 66. No.1, 2006).
- "The Man" appeared in "Beyond the Rainbow" (No. 28, 2006).
-"Sleeplessness" appeared in "Meanjin" Magazine (Vol .66, No. 2, 2007) and in "The Best Australian Poems 2007" (edited by Peter Rose).
-"Fire and Sinbad" appeared in “Culture is …" an anthology (edited by Anne-Marie Smith) 2008.
*
Many thanks to;
Rosslyn Ramsey, Anthony Pain, Jill Gower, Jude Aquilina, Gaetano Aiello and Phil Heang.
Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen's poetry:
The shades of darkness
Jude Aquilina
I have had the pleasure of knowing Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen through my position at the South Australian Writers’ Centre for a number of years. Even before I read his extraordinary poetry, I soon realised, through our conversations, that he was a wise and articulate man. Here is a writer who seeks to understand the passion, and the suffering in the world today and, through his poetry, shares his innate knowledge of the human soul.
Born in Babylon, Iraq in 1953, Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen has pursued a lifetime of writing and learning. He has degrees in Economics and English Literature from the University of Baghdad. He has worked as a journalist and translator, alongside his career as a widely published poet. To date, Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen has published ten collections of poetry, and his poems have been translated into many languages, including English, German and French. He recently attained a Diploma of Interpreting (Arabic-English) from Adelaide Institute of TAFE, South Australia.
Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen is known as ‘The Man of Letters’ in his home country. In a literary study on his works, published in 2007 in Lebanon, 33 critics discuss and applauded his poetry. Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen is quickly gaining a reputation as one of Australian’s finest poets, with work represented in high profile Australian literary journals like Meanjin and Southerly, and in anthologies such as The Best Australian Poems, 2007, Edited by Peter Rose, published by Black Inc Press and Culture is, 2008, Edited by Anne-Marie Smith, published by Wakefield Press.
Layered in meaning and nuance, Kamal Ad-Deen’s poetry is rich with deft imagery and well-chosen, often hard-hitting, language. Wide-ranging in his choice of subject matter, the poet pays heartfelt tribute to loss and grief but also to love in its many forms. Unafraid to address issues such as war, human rights and personal relationships, Kamal Ad-Deen does so with skill and empathy. Expect the unexpected! These poems are loaded with the strange and the symbolic. Suffering is shared, and the mysteries and intricacies of Iraqi culture are thoughtfully explored, making the personal universal.
Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen’s choice of metaphors and similes is always apt, often pleasingly strange:
‘I was as delighted as a corpse
With its new grave.’
His poems reflect his love of language, both English and Arabic, and are rich with exotic imagery, as in ‘An Attempt at Eulogy’. Here the use of repetition and word play, create a dreamlike picture in the reader’s mind:
‘As good as a lost date
As lean as a Bedouin fire’. . .
‘as lean as a lost date
As good as a Bedouin fire’.
Kamal Ad-Deen’s love of language, of words, and in particular of the letters in the Arabic alphabet is apparent throughout this collection. The letters that make up the holy Koran are explored in depth and steeped in symbolism.
In the tender poem ‘Kelmat’ the poet writes to his ten-year-old daughter:
‘Whenever I want to drink from the glass
The glass of poison
As Socrates did
I remember you
And I throw the glass away.’
The poet’s subtle sense of humour is also well placed, providing balance to the shades of darkness; I quote, ‘like a good fire which dogs make water on’. Often cyclic in form and always satisfyingly whole, these poems know how to dance!
As a fellow poet, I am grateful that Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen chose to make Adelaide his home. His contribution to the South Australian writing community and to Australian poetry publishing is already significant. His dedication to the art is evident in the steady stream of new work he produces and publishes. I look forward to reading more of his writings, both new and translated older works.
I am certain that the exciting poetic voice of Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen will continue to resonate with readers around the world.
*******************
The poems
Poems Pictures News Address Home Criticism English Connect