Magin_Edward-thesis

44
And I started to write my poem, and I felt, really, I can’t use the qafîa. 25
I can’t cater to the vowels and consonants. So I put my poem about that
subject in a free style, and that was my first time when I wrote in this
style. (Sindî 2010)
Mihsin Quçan, Mu’eyed Teyb, Abdulrahman Mizuri and Feisel Mustafa are some of the
other poets who also began writing in free verse during this time.
The main subject of the poetry of this time was Kurdistan, and focused on
Kurdish rights and their fight for Kurdish independence (Teyb 2010a). Quçan says, “It
was all about patriotism―national poetry. For example, if you said “my sweetheart,” it
was Kurdistan. If you said, “my mother,” it was Kurdistan” (Quçan 2010). In 1979,
however, the Iraqi Minister of Information set some limits and restrictions on Kurdish
communications, affecting the topics allowed in poetry; and in 1982 Mu’eyid Teyb’s
poems (and likely poems of other poets) were banned, and his family felt threatened.
Teyb says, “But some young men liked my poetry―they memorized it. They wrote it by
hand and distributed it to each other. That’s why some of them are still around. Of
course, some have become songs” (Teyb 2010a).
Putting poetry into song was nothing new for Kurds. Many learned Cegerxwîn’s
poetry through songs by Şivan Perwar, a singer from Turkey (Teyb 2010a). In my initial
conversation with Badirxan Sindî, he mentioned that many of his poems were known
from being the lyrics of songs by Tehsin Taha, a famous singer in Iraq at the time, who is
still revered.
3.1.3 Modern period
Starting in 1991, everything changed for Iraqi Kurds. After the US warred against
Iraq to free Kuwait, the Kurdish people began to rise up and see themselves as free,
without Saddam Hussein. But when America left, Hussein’s forces came northward. The
Kurds fled for their lives to the mountains in Turkey. There they suffered a great deal, as
25 Sindî explains that the word qafîa means ‘end rhyme.’ I have not determined if it can be used more
widely, such as for other rhymes or assonance.