The poet Aref Al-Saadi is considered one of the purest Arab poetic voices, and he is a well-informed intellectual. Therefore, he was chosen as a cultural advisor to the brotherly Prime Minister of Iraq, in addition to Al-Saadi's gentleness of character and a refined sense of communication. The innocence of childhood, and the data of the first well.. Here is the text of the dialogue:
• How is the Iraqi culture?
•• Iraqi culture is part of the Arab culture. It is affected by the environment and influences it at the same time. In Iraq, we always say that we do not have anything authentic in this country as much as we have of culture. However, as is the case in the world, this characteristic is exposed to tremors. Whenever a political storm, war, or siege shakes the country, culture is exposed to these tremors. However, in general, it remains a main pillar from which we can proceed to any other space. The advantage of Iraqi culture is that it has solid roots that do not shake at any moment. The country is recovering. I find culture at the top of the country's ladder in terms of building a person and his preoccupation with knowledge.
• Can the current Iraqi intellectuals make a shift in Arab culture? Like al-Sayyab and Nazik al-Malaika and al-Bayati?
•• It was known about Iraq that it is the father of modernist transformations in Arab culture, specifically in poetry, because poetry is the original material of the Arabs, as most of the creative arts are imported except for poetry, as it is our original art, and it is part of our daily life. The product of the civil stage in Iraq and the rise of the middle class in the country, where the beginning of higher education and the opening of the country to the Western world and international missions and the beginning of real cities, and the end of World War II and many other reasons contributed to societal transformations that produced the important cultural transformation at the hands of the pioneers, but now Iraq has this legacy The great and the tiring at the same time, because the poets are the children of my generation and the generations that preceded us and those who followed us are the children of this important legacy that we must overcome, and it is a difficult bet, but once you feel the weight of this legacy and you must either overcome it or at least preserve it, then you are on the right path, but Despite this, we do not lack of experiences that emerge from one generation to the next from the idea of renewal, transformation and transcendence, and these attempts have not been interrupted until this moment.
• What is new that you are working on today other than Al-Marbad?
Al-Mirbad is a great heritage that we are still working on and trying to develop in a manner befitting its name and the name of the poets who passed through it, from Al-Jawahiri to the last Arab poet who believed in poetry and freedom. We are definitely working on many projects that are not only related to poetry, but also in drama, cinema, theater and singing, all of which are soft forces. Building societies and perpetuating the spirit of knowledge.
• In your capacity as an advisor to the Prime Minister, when is the advisor consulted, or does he take the initiative to offer advice even if you do not ask him?
•• There are two lines for the advisor; The first is for him to be an initiative and put forward projects that convince the president and his work team, so the president adopts them, and they are accomplished on the ground, and this is what I am working on. Because the cultural center and its concerns we are closer to it and we know the keys to solutions to a number of those.
• Why did the Arab culture decline in the list of priorities?
Part of this decline is related to education, its transformations, and the decline of education. It caused a decline in interest in culture and its concerns. The other important part is related to the political regimes and their ability to pay attention to culture. As the ideal solution to the problems of countries, if the regimes do not care about culture and support it as they support the ministries of defense and security, we will not have a balanced generation. The sums that are allocated for the purchase of tanks and cannons, if values are allocated from them to build theaters, cinemas, art and music theaters, and interest in youth, we will harvest young people who love their countries, coexist with great love, and contribute to building their countries in a scientific way and we will avoid many of the problems of extremism and terrorism.
• When do we attend the Iraqi cultural days in Riyadh?
•• Iraq is present and ready with all its cultural diversities to attend an Iraqi cultural week in Riyadh, on the condition that the Saudis pledge to us to hold a Saudi cultural week in Baghdad and in all aspects of Saudi culture, and this is what His Highness Prince Badr Al Farhan, Minister of Culture, announced to us at the opening of the Riyadh Book Fair in 2021 When Iraq was a guest of honor at the exhibition, unfortunately until now this promise has not been fulfilled. So we are ready to come to Riyadh but with this promise.
• Where does the Arab intellectual meet with his Arab brother and where does he separate?
•• The question is very broad; Because this matter is related to the references of Arab intellectuals and their cognitive backgrounds in which one intellectual differs from another intellectual. We in Iraq went through bitter conflicts in the sixties between communist intellectuals, Baathist intellectuals, and nationalists, each based on his ideology and intellectual premises that contradict each other, until the differences reached killing, displacement, and exile. These disputes have eaten us for nearly sixty years, and until now there are some of the roots of those differences, but now in this time we are experiencing the decline of ideology and the rise of the somewhat liberal intellectual, but at the same time there is the extremist intellectual who cannot be called an intellectual.
• What is the condition of effective and influential culture?
•• According to what I see, the condition of effective culture is the extent of your ability to produce a balanced discourse that is far from violence and terrorism, and to look at the other who is different from you in a balanced, non-suspicious way. We learned from childhood that the other is your enemy, so avoid him or fight him. Movies and series, but the free world has taught us otherwise, that the other is similar to you and maybe better than you, and you have to invest his good deeds to learn from them.
What are the first capillary nutrients?
•• The mother, the house, the village, the small river, the crying of old women and their wailing, hunger, the dusty school road, the cold in winter days, raising the flag on Thursday, the first sight, the first date, crying in the hands of the beloved, my grandmother’s stories and her superstitions, making coffee for the guests, escaping from school, the money of our neighbors, mourning mothers for their losses… all That and other noodle feeders first.
• Do you have poetic fathers?
•• Every great poem I read is a cup of poetic milk that I drank in my childhood, and every great poet I passed through is a father whose clothes I cling to, and it has been said that a great poem is the one that finds the echo of the greats in it.
• When do you write your poem, and when do you write it?
•• The poem is usually what writes me, for I may leave poetry for many months, and practice my life without poetry, but every day I repeat the verses of Al-Jawahiri:
Brim blame blamers and say
I'm coming to an unreturned tweet
Did you leave the hair unattended?
The mother of poetry as she tried to obey
Are those emotions drained wealth?
Kindly streams like the sources
They think that hair is a plug
Whenever they want it and a good seller
Then the poem comes at some point, so I surrender myself completely to it, and I remain as someone who gathers wood for the fire until it perpetuates its burning, everything I turn to serve the poem.
• Why does the vertical and active poet take care of the audience more than he takes care of his inner man?
A poet without an audience is frankly difficult, but at the same time it is not right for a poet to write his poem for an audience because he will be swayed by populism and ordinary axioms, and will keep looking for worthless applause. Because the poetry that is full of answers is naive reassuring poetry, while the provocative poetry is the one that arouses in the soul more than a passing hairstyle, and yet the poet should not be superior to his audience and read to them meaningless fantasies and fill his poem with useless hieroglyphs and calligraphy, and when you ask him about its meaning he argues with modernity He says that my poem is for the future, as if modernity flogs people with meaningless ambiguity, so why cram yourself and read in front of an audience if you are a future poet as some claim.
• To whom do you owe credit for what you have reached of popularity and acceptance?
•• I owe poetry for everything I have reached, for my whole life depends on it. My friendships are because of poetry. My studies until I became a doctor and then I took the title of professor because of poetry. My work as a university professor and then as a general manager in the Ministry of Culture and then as a cultural advisor to the Prime Minister is because of poetry. My travels My movements and relationships are all because of poetry. Poetry opened to me a whole world of joy and sadness. Religion is always for him, and I curse him as well, as Lamia Abbas Amara cursed him when she said:
Curse of cursing, O hair on you
What caught me in your hands?
All the secrets of Alwari are hidden
And hidden whisper exposed you
You if you were a good angel
What we pleaded with your demon
Doesn't the heavy applause make the poet dizzy?
•• It confuses him, but he also makes him feel happy. True poets are big children who rejoice in sweets, and it is the audience whose eyes sparkle over the text.
• How does the poet transcend himself?
•• The poet has no value if he does not transcend himself, the poet has no meaning if he repeats his poems, and he has no artistic value if one divan and one poem do not differ from another, and this is a very difficult bet, he depends on the poet not to repeat his experiences based on his awareness of transformations and based on his references And its nutrients that it feeds on are reading, awareness and culture in general. Poets who do not read novels or translated poetry, do not watch movies, do not travel, do not fall in love or quarrel, you will find their texts cold, repetitive and worthless.
• What do you think of those who write poetry to win prizes and compete in competitions?
•• Frankly, I am not with writing poetic texts for the purpose of the award, although I did it once and failed at it, despite the importance of awards financially and in the media, but limiting some awards to specific purposes and writing about them in this way will produce poetry closer to educational, as modernity has gone beyond the idea of the specific purpose and functionality of the poem ; Because it is like a bridle that is placed on horses, I am with the prizes that are given to the poetic achiever, with the prize that is given for unwritten poetry for a prize other than poetry, here the poet feels that he has accomplished something important and that they turned to his poetry without writing it to win, and this is what I felt when I won Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Award in 2021 for Kamel Al-Shaari.
• What can the poem address today? Or is it just a pain reliever?
A: Real poetry does not deal with anything, as this is a stage we have passed in that poetry is a servant of social, religious or political purposes. Because if the purposes and treatments enter into it, it will turn into a means for non-poetic ends, and this is what poetry refuses to be a bridge to non-poetic things. Because purposeful poems with a specific function will die with the death of the event and disappear with the disappearance of the place.
• What do you say to someone who thinks poetry is a collocation of words or a manipulation of language?
•• God forgive you.
• How satisfied are you with the critics and their work on your hair?
A: On the simplicity of my poetic experience, I say that I am lucky compared to the people of my generation and even to the generations that preceded me of Iraqi and Arab poets. I have had more than twenty master’s and doctoral studies devoted to the study of my poetry only, and this is a great achievement, in addition to my entry into more than fifty academic works among the sons of my generation or Studying the Iraqi poetic phenomena, in addition to addressing my experience by senior Iraqi and Arab critics who gave their opinion on that experience, which is a matter of pride and appreciation on my part.
• Does the poet need a wasta to be a poet?
A true poet is similar to a football player in the national team. A coach or president of the Football Association cannot promote a player to the national team while he is weak. His affairs will be revealed in the first game. Likewise, poets cannot promote this great work. Perhaps some owners of money have a desire to be Poets, and I have examples of that, but they are shocked in front of the poets of tramps, but they are real poets.
• What do you aspire to poetically and humanly?
•• I aspire that my poem will remain in the memory, even after a while. The poem that transcends time has a lucky poet.
His interlocutor: Ali Al-Rubai