Magin_Edward-thesis

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two famous Kurdish poets, Ahmed Cezîrî and Ahmed Xanî, and read their works (Sindî
2010). Sindî says:
Indeed my first drive into looking for Kurdish literature at that time was
the feeling of Kurdishness. And Kurdishness means “the feeling of being a
Kurd,” or the feeling that I am a Kurdish man and I have the right to be
like all the people who have their freedom and independence―and one of
markers of our cultural identity is our language and our literature. (Sindî
2010)
After Nalbend, poets such as Badirxan Sindî and Abdulrahman Muzirî began
writing their poetry in a much purer Kurdish. They still wrote in the Neo-classical style,
but worked to write without the use of Arabic or other languages of wider communication
(LWC). Also during this time, these poets, as well as Cegerxwîn, no longer wrote poems
asking God to protect them and make them free, but called out to the people to educate
themselves and become more aware of the social, cultural and political issues facing the
people (Teyb 2010a).
Until the 1970s, Kurds had only been educated in Arabic. But a peace treaty in
1970 between Mustafa Barzanî, the leader of the Northern Kurdish Kurds, and the Iraqi
government gave Kurdish an official status in the country. Nalbend’s poems were
published for the first time, and, based on that treaty, one subject in Kurdish was
permitted in the schools. This was the first time students were introduced to Kurdish
poetry and grammar (Teyb 2010a). It was also during this time that some Northern
Kurdish poets in Iraq began writing in free verse, 24 where the classical rules of writing
with rhyme, line length (syllable count) and meter do not apply (Quçan 2010). Sindî
explains his first experience writing free verse as follows:
This was in 1975 when the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein signed what
they called the Algerian Treaty. So when I heard it, I was shocked and I
couldn’t believe that everything was over, because Kurdish people and the
fighters had been fighting for years―from’61 to ’75. It was for 14 years.
24 Sorani poets, and even Northern Kurdish poets in Syria, began writing in free verse before Bahdini
speakers (Quçan interview 2010, Appendix B).