video duration 07 minutes 25 seconds
Iraqi poetess, she played an important role in the development of the poetic movement in her country and in the Arab world, at a time when great names such as Nazik Al-Malaika, Badr Shaker Al-Sayyab and Balund Al-Haidari shone in the 1950s and Sixty of the last century.
Lamia Abbas Amara was born in 1929 in Baghdad, originally from the southern city of Amara. She was educated at the Higher Teachers’ House and there she studied with personalities who would later become famous, such as Shaker al-Sayyab, Nazik al-Malaika, Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati and her cousin Abd al-Razzaq Abd al-Wahed , and graduated in 1955 with a licentiate in Arabic.
His poetic voice emerged as a different voice and his poetry was distinguished by its boldness and strong language. And he published a poem for her when she was more than 15 years old, that is in the year 1944 and in a magazine called “Al-Samir”, with the help of the well-known Lebanese poet Elia Abu Madi, who was a friend of his uncle and he predicted her a brilliant poetic future, saying: “If there were such children in Iraq. For any poetic revival, Iraq agrees.
According to Iraqi writer Aqil Abbas, “Lami’a made a huge revolution in poetry because she focused on the concept of freedom and was a voice for women.” Her poetry was also characterized by a strong cheerfulness and personality. She said in her famous poem “I am Iraqi,” which she improvised when a poet tried to flirt with her at the Al-Mirbad Poetry Festival in the 1980s in Iraq: “Do you smoke? No. Do you drink? No Do you dance?No.What is the plural of no?She said, I am Iraqi.
The Iraqi poet also worked in the diplomatic corps, holding the position of permanent representative of Iraq to UNESCO in Paris between 1973 and 1975.
The story of Lamea and Al-Sayyab
Lamia joined the late Iraqi poet Shaker al-Sayyab in the Teachers High School, and this fascinated him to her and he sang a poem about her saying, “I reminded you, O Lamia, when there was snow and rain …” He also left many poems talking about her, so much so that many say that the famous poem “Rain” I wrote about it.
In an interview with Iraqi novelist Inaam Kachaji, Lamea said: “It is certain that I loved him – that is al-Sayyab – and I wrote poems for him, and I was very impressed by our friendship, which was nothing more than a relationship innocent, flamboyant and creative. It was a very rich period in Badr’s life, I almost stopped writing poetry during the whole time I knew him, and I was satisfied with the role of inspirer, listener, critic, of companion and friend, I was the mother and the beloved, therefore my production was small and his production abundant, I was happy with his friendship and satisfied. And he left him poems in which he imitates him, like the poem “Shaherazade”, which he wrote during their “study” phase together.
Lamea has published numerous poetry collections, including “The Empty Corner” (1960), “The Return of Spring” (1963), “Songs of Ishtar” (1969), “They Call It Love” (1972), and “If the Fortune Teller” (1972).1980) and “The Last Dimension” (1988). And those collections ranged from an activation poem to free poetry.
She died in 2021 at the age of 92 in San Diego on the west coast of the United States, where she lived the rest of her life after leaving Iraq in the 1970s.
