Absence and Longing :A Reading of the Poetry Collection (Before the Sea Awakens) by Hussein Al-Sayyab

Yemenat

Mohammed Al–Mekhalfi

When I opened the poetry collection (Before the Sea Awakens) by the Iraqi poet Hussein Al-Sayyab, I felt as though I were stepping into a blooming garden filled with tranquility, an atmosphere that mirrors his calm presence and gentle nature, known to all who have ever sat with him.

Al-Sayyab approaches poetry as one might handle something fragile, something feared to break between the hands. He preserves the simplicity of his spirit and maintains the necessary distance a writer needs to listen deeply to his own inner voice.

He has published several works, beginning with his first poetry collection (By the Heart’s Time) in Baghdad in 2019, followed by a second edition in 2020. Then came (Hymns of Pain) in 2020, (The Sand’s Melody) in 2022, and (Rain on the Clay’s Cheek) in 2024.

This latest collection, (Before the Sea Awakens), the subject of this study, was published recently in 2025 by Manazil Publishing House in Damietta, Egypt. It spans 143 pages and contains 127 poems. It begins with a text titled You Are the Dream That Awakens Me Every Morning and ends with The Land of Hassan Ajami.

Through this modest study, I will attempt to approach the collection as an emotional experience rather than a sequence of separate poems, seeking to understand how Al-Sayyab, with his quiet poetic voice and deep reflection, managed to make the sea awaken in the reader’s heart before it awakens on the page.

The title (Before the Sea Awakens) is a successful choice, rich with layered meanings. The word “before” opens a space of expectant waiting for what the sea might say when it wakes, since the sea is treated as a living being that sleeps and wakes. By attributing the act of awakening to it, the poet redraws the relationship between human and place. Awakening in this context hints at a moment of transformation, carrying a subtle tension and preparing the reader to enter a world filled with unfolding events.

As I skimmed through the book’s titles, I did not view them as a rigid list, but as small signposts guiding me toward a unified inner mood despite the different images and varied landscapes. I felt that the poet writes with a question inside him, one he does not wish to name clearly: Who am I amid all this loss? He may not say it outright, but the titles betray him.

Titles such as A Day Expanding Like the Wings of Absence, Sorrows Without Boats, and Mirrors’ Mist give the impression of someone walking while looking behind him more than ahead. There is a gentle confusion, a hesitation resembling the moment a person tries to recall a path he knows yet finds it no longer the same.

On the other hand, certain titles gleam with a desire to hold on to what keeps slipping away: I Write You as a Melody, Your Breath Is a Homeland, The Benediction of Love. It is as though the poet tells himself, If absence is larger than I am, perhaps I can at least hold on to a voice, a scent, a fleeting moment.

Even the seemingly calm titles, such as Peace Upon the Ink of Life or Old Pictures of You, carry traces of that backward glance we all know, the return to moments that did not end as they should have. Here, the poet does not revisit the past out of nostalgia, but as if he is reviewing old notebooks to discover where the wound truly began.

Perhaps the presence of myth in Ishtar and The Hymn of Gilgamesh is not mere cultural ornamentation, but an attempt to suggest that humanity’s questions have not changed much since the beginning, the same pain, the same search, the same sense of being lost, even if the tools have changed.

Titles tied to journeys such as A Poet’s Journey, Train, and Paths of Temptation suggest that the poet is in constant motion, always walking, because if he stops for even a moment, he will be forced to confront himself directly, something he tries to postpone as long as he can.

Amid all these movements, the sea, absence, rain, and winter remain quietly present, like an inner climate that never shifts, clouds that accompany you along the road even when they do not rain.

Selections from the Collection

1. Your Eyes Sketch Me

Restless places grow with me.
I watch the world
through a narrow slit,
wide enough for half an eye,
half a heart,
so I may see life the way I wish to see it.

I am from a generation
crushed by the seduction of war,
and a homeland forgotten at the edge of a bullet.
In the shadow of death,
we walked. In the shadow of fear,
we fled.
In the shadow of poetry hidden
in soldiers’ bags,
the days devoured us.
With the craft of a southern farmer.

Al-Sayyab reveals in this poem an experience shaped by the weight of war and the terror of fear. The “narrow slit” is not a physical opening, but a metaphor for a limited ability to see amid chaos. Despite its narrowness, it remains his own window, his personal way of perceiving life as he wishes, not as it is imposed upon him.

The imagery carries a deep sense of pain and unease. The shadow of death and the shadow of fear follow him as though he is in a constant state of escape. Yet in the midst of all this, something still anchors him to life and to his roots, the craft of a southern farmer. This craft symbolizes his connection to the land and to his heritage, a testament to his belonging despite the bitterness and harshness of reality.

2. Flood

It is me and the weeping,
a sweep of sea
I entrust with you whenever
I count the water in its depths,
drop after drop.

Your pulse flows out of me,
and every night I melt,
I grow drunk on the roar of your voice.
You are the soul, and after you, an endless flood.

The poem rests upon a single central idea, an unending weeping, a wave that never pauses. The sea becomes the space where the poet pours out his emotions for his beloved. The imagery is simple and clear, yet it carries a depth of feeling that surpasses the very words attempting to contain it. The repeated use of elements such as water, pulse, and melting gives the poem a sense of harmony and warmth.

The phrase “You are the soul” anchors the entire poem, while “and after you, an endless flood” reveals the poet’s fear of loss more than it expresses love itself, giving the text a sincere and palpable emotional weight.

3. Walls of Longing

The wall of rain rises
like a mirage trying to hold the air.

I stretch my hand
into a wary night,
and a star falls
upon my shoulder
while the shadows
whisper your name.

There, behind the trembling of light,
your face hangs
from a blurred memory,
old rain dripping from its eyes.

And I collapse between my heartbeat and yours, like a balcony eaten away
by silence, left dangling
on the waist of the wind.

The poem revolves around longing, a deep emotion that rises like a barrier difficult to cross. Poetic images such as “your face hanging from a blurred memory” and “like a balcony consumed by silence” convey a sincere sense of fragility, making longing almost tangible for the reader, something they can feel and live through.

The language of the collection is honest and intimate, reflecting the poet’s spirit as if he were sitting before the reader, recounting each moment without trying to impress with ornate words. His style sometimes leans toward short, sharp lines and at other times toward fragmentary rhythms, yet it always retains a strong emotional resonance that allows the reader to feel what the poet is experiencing, not merely what he wants them to observe.

(Before the Sea Awakens) forms an important addition to Iraqi and Arab poetry, offering a genuine and unembellished expression of absence and longing. Through a clear, fluid language and symbolic imagery, the collection transforms the sea, the rain, and the inner journey into witnesses of the poet’s emotional landscape, leaving the reader room to feel, respond, and contemplate freely.