An Overview of Ahmad Al-Safi Al-Najafi
Key highlights of Ahmad Al-Safi Al-Najafi’s life include:
- Ahmad Al-Safi Al-Najafi was an esteemed Iraqi poet born in 1897 to an Iraqi father and a Lebanese mother.
- Between 1920 and 1927, he left Iraq for Iran, where he met the prominent Iraqi poet, Jameel Sedqi Al-Zahawi, who expressed pride in discovering Al-Najafi’s talent.
- In 1929, due to health issues, Al-Najafi relocated from Iraq to Syria in search of a more suitable climate.
- By 1933, he had moved to Lebanon, residing there until a year before his passing.
- During the Lebanese Civil War, Al-Najafi was wounded, prompting his return to Iraq in 1976, where he ultimately died on June 27, 1977.
The Poetry of Ahmad Al-Safi Al-Najafi
Ahmad Al-Safi Al-Najafi’s poetry is characterized by a remarkable simplicity, often resembling colloquial speech. Below are some of the verses he composed:
First Collection
- Though I am in ignorance, I have diminished
- Myself, for I am more ignorant than the age and the generation
- I am a mosquito in this world, and when I see
- Some of my fellow beings, it feels as if I am among them a giant.
- There are many means of transportation you can use
- To walk to any place you desire
- But is there a means of transportation for time
- To aid us in reviving youth we once cherished?
- I stood at Maysaloon, mourning the fallen pride
- I tried to compose poetry, and my verses flowed as tears.
- A hand extended to me from a man who intrigued me
- Hot from the blaze of temptation
- He said, “This is the warmth of faith,”
- I replied, “No, rather it is the warmth of bankruptcy.”
- O sentinel, who came without a beloved,
- You are a thorn, where is your rose?
- O thorn, I could not bear your burden
- With a rose, how could I endure you alone?
- The mind mocks existence, never complete,
- Seeing the world as mere farce.
- Existence melted before a deficient intellect,
- What would happen if it confronted a complete mind?
- The flower was placed among thorns for a reason,
- Wherein lies the wisdom of the artist;
- For the ugliness of mankind has an advantage over the beautiful,
- For beauty is often lost among the appealing.
Second Collection
- I saw lies as a shortcoming but nonetheless,
- They appear prevalent among each of my kind.
- If I were to hate all liars outright,
- I would have to despise all of humanity, including myself.
- My solace is that they deceive the inquisitive into thinking,
- And poverty fears that my pocket is full.
- How many times has a beggar’s hopes been let down,
- And how often have I felt embarrassed for their plight?
- I praised a lad, claiming he would someday be a great poet;
- I puffed him up so he might soar, but he split before he could fly.
- Frugality has left me strained
- By withholding me from necessary meals;
- Starvation has affected me to the point that
- I feel as if I’m deprived of life itself.
- O fortune, new, come visit me,
- To rescue me from the burdens of the past;
- For I had lost hope in achieving joy,
- And now I seek to renew my burdens.
- How many times have I been deceived by those I trusted,
- Yet found not one to empathize with me?
- The only friend that remains is poetry,
- And it alone comforts me.
- None can withstand the weight of my verses,
- For they tremble every community grounded in stillness;
- My poetry embodies existence entirely;
- How could it be endured by mere fragments of being?!!