Poems that Do Not Sleep

‘I write scenes from life that the eye cannot see, as if I was trying to paint air or spirit.’ Written from the perspective of an Iraqi soldier this is a bilingual collection of poems on war and exile, and of making a new life in a strange country.

Hassan Al Nawwab is a former Iraqi soldier who came to Australia after the war with his family 20 years ago. With devastating simplicity, these imagistic poems speak of war and terror, of homesickness in exile, the blessings of peace and the pain of belonging. The collection is in two parts, ‘Tree Flying’ and ‘Diaspora’, and each poem is presented with its counterpart in Arabic on the opposite page, as translated from English by the poet himself.