Magin_Edward-thesis

352
MT: Kurdish, you mean?
EM: Yes
MT: When he first became interested in Kurdish poetry, he was introduced to
Nalbend’s poems. At the beginning he was reading those. But after that he came across
more modern poets like Badirxan Sindî; his language was nice, it was beautiful, and the
content was also good. Then he moved to some Classical poets like Cezîrî and Xanî. And
he also, he says, he liked some non-Kurdish poets, like Arabic poets.
Concerning Cegerxwîn, he only knew of him by means of Shivan Perwar’s songs.
He says this is a great problem for Kurdish. For Kurds―they didn’t have books about
them. Only after that, when they were bigger, I mean older, they knew about Cegerxwîn
and Cezîrî and others. There were no books. Because Kurds were not living freely, there
was no freedom in Kurdistan. Maybe one poet in Dohuk was very famous, I mean, a very
good poet. But if you would go to Erbil, nobody would know him. Or if you went to
Mosul or Cezîre or Iran, nobody would know him. Kurds lived in a country that was not
their own country―and the other parts were not independent―that’s why Kurds didn’t
know each other. The second problem is the difference of dialects. For example, Sorani
poets are not popular here. And vice versa, Bahdini poets are not popular there. Maybe
because they cannot understand each other, that’s why.
EM: Can you speak about the changes, the development, of poetry? What has
been good? What has been bad?
MT: From where till when?
EM: From Nalbend to now.
MT: Concerning Nalbend, he was Neo-Classical. He was attempting to write like
Cezîrî and Xanî, but his language was more popular and his content had more variety, I
mean, more subjects, more strategy, more extension. This was the first stage of the
change. And Nalbend also talked about Kurdish nationality, about the movement of
independence of Kurdistan. But as a political man, he was not that educated. Salih Yusef,