In this brilliant book, ?Abdulwa?id Lu'lu'a translates and introduces eighty poems from one of the pioneers of modern Arabic poetry, Buland Al-?aidari.

Buland Al-?aidari might fairly be considered the fourth pillar holding up the dome of modern Arabic poetry. Alongside his famous contemporaries Nazik al-Mala'ika, Badre Shakir Al-Sayyab, and 'Abdulwahhab Al-Bayyati, Al-?aidari likewise made significant contributions to the development of twentieth-century Arabic poetry, including the departure from the traditional use of two-hemistich verses in favor of what has been called the Arabic "free verse" form.

A few of Al-?aidari's poems have been translated into English separately, but no book-length translation of his poetry has been published until now. In Buland Al-?aidari and Modern Iraqi Poetry, ?Abdulwa?id Lu'lu'a translates eighty of Al-?aidari's most important poems, giving English-speaking readers access to this rich corpus. Lu'lu'a's perceptive introduction acquaints readers with the contours of Al-?aidari's life and situates his work in the context of modern Arabic poetry. The translated pieces not only illustrate the depth of Al-?aidari's poetic imagination but also showcase the development of his style, from the youthful romanticism of his first collection Clay Throb (1946) to the detached pessimism of his Songs of the Dead City (1951). Selections are also included from his later collections Steps in Exile (1965), The Journey of Yellow Letters (1968), and Songs of the Tired Guard (1977). These poems paint a vivid picture of the literary and poetic atmosphere in Baghdad and Iraq from the mid-1940s to the close of the twentieth century.