This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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Iraqi poet Lamia Abbas Amara was born in 1929 and published her first poem when she was thirteen:
By Hend Saeed
Lamia Abbas Amara was from a poetic family — she was cousin to the well-known Iraqi poet Abdul Razak Abdul Wahed — and she started writing poetry when very young. She graduated from Baghdad’s Higher Teacher’s College in 1950 and, for many years, taught Arabic.
Her three most widely read poetry collections are: The Empty Corner, I Am Iraqi, and Had the Fortune-teller Told Me.
She has written both formal and free verse, and she’s said that that formal verse is the way to communicate with others, but that she prefers writing free verse, which she things bring her closer to her audience.
She was a member of the Board of Directors of the Iraqi Writers Association between 1963 and 75, and deputy to the Iraqi representative for UNESCO in Paris from 1973-75.
She currently lives in the United States.
You can see her read the Arabic original of “Had the Fortune-teller Told Me.”
Had the Fortune-teller Told Me
By Lamia Abbas Amara
Translated by Hend Saeed
If only the fortune-teller had told me that
you would, one day, be my beloved
I wouldn’t have written love poems for a man
but would have prayed, mute,
that you would always be my lover
If only the fortune-teller had told me that
I would touch the face of that high moon
I wouldn’t have dallied with the pebbles on the walls
or strung together the beads of my hopes
If only the fortune-teller had told me that
my beloved
would be a prince, astride a ruby horse
life would have pulled me along with its blonde braids
and I wouldn’t have dreamed of my death
If only the fortune-teller had told me that
my beloved, on a snowy night
would hold the sun in his hands
my lungs would’ve blossomed
and yesterday’s worries would have shrunk in my eyes
If only the fortune-teller had told me that
I would meet you in this labyrinth
I would have cried for nothing in this world
I would have gathered my tears
all my tears
for the day when you abandon me
Hend Saeed loves books and has a special interest in Arabic literature. She had published a collection of short stories and recently started “Arabic Literature in English – Australia.” She is also a translator, life consultant, and book reviewer.
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