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forbidden, and they started after the Kurdish society here in Iraq got its freedom; that’s
when they started to read and write in the Kurdish language. So they are beginners. They
began with no roots really―with no real roots, literature roots. They try to copy the
available literature of other countries or other nations. So, we can say there are a lot of
poets here in Dohuk―and even in Sulemaniya and Erbil 211 ―who just imitate the
Palestinian poets, French poets, Italian poets, American poets. They read some translated
work and they try to copy the same experience and the same literature, but they put it in
the Kurdish language. As I think about it, this is a bad thing…maybe a bad thing.
Because I believe that the original literature is the literature which grew in this society
with a good respect to the past and with a good view to the future. That is why we can see
a lot of work in Badinan and Soran. Some poets who think these are the modern poems―
They think that modern poetry is when you say something illogical, when you say some
strange things, when you say some nasty things, when you try to be strangers in your
society. They think this is modern literature. They try to pretend that they are the
generation of renewing the literature. And some of them say, no, we are not renewing the
literature; we are establishing the literature and everything that has been said before us, it
is not literature. To them, Kurdish literature is starting now. These are extremists and
most of the people―they don’t like this sort of literature because they say they can’t even
understand what they are saying when reading these poems. Something strange.
Something foreign from logic. Even the poet sometimes doesn’t know what he is saying.
But on the other side, we have got some Kurdish poets who have done respectable work
and they try to give a message through their poems, and depicted themselves. They read
the previous work, like Xanî and Cezîrî and the whole history of Kurdish literature. So
we have some famous and very good poets in Kurdistan in general, such as Sherko Bekas
in Sulemaniya, Abdulrahman Mezurî in Badinan, Mu’eyed Teyb in Badinan, as well as
some others.
211 Duhok, Sulemaniya and Erbil are cities in the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq.