Flashes of Being by Malik Al-Batli (Iraq)

Malik Al-Batli

Iraqi Poet, Writer, and Journalist

It is said that most prophets remained unknown, while those who became known were often those who introduced themselves to the world. As for me, I present myself not as a finished identity, but as a human and literary journey still unfolding—one that continues to seek a trace worthy of the word, and horizons wide enough to embrace poetry, thought, and beauty.

I was born in southern Iraq, in the province of Basra, a city whose imprint upon my spirit remains inseparable from my literary experience. I entered the cultural sphere at an early age and became involved with dozens of Arab newspapers, cultural platforms, and media outlets. I continue to write Iraqi popular poetry as well as free verse, moving between different forms and spaces of literary expression.

I established a notable presence in Iraqi popular poetry, particularly in Abu Dhiyya, one of Iraq’s distinctive traditional poetic forms, where I received several notable rankings among its poets in 2014. My beginnings in this form can be traced to an early age, perhaps as far back as primary school. Over the years, my poetic voice developed through extensive reading, study, literary practice, and sustained engagement with the written word. This journey was also shaped by my belonging to a family with deep and longstanding poetic roots.

I later turned to the short story and literary prose, and subsequently to prose poetry, where I found a broader space for experimentation and expression. My work received attention and recognition within a number of literary circles. I then embarked upon a serious engagement with the literary essay, an experience that helped consolidate my intellectual and linguistic maturity and deepened my relationship with language—not merely as a vehicle for writing, but as a means of contemplation, discovery, and revelation.

My writings have appeared in numerous Arab and international newspapers and literary journals, including publications in Turkey, France, the United Kingdom and other English-speaking circles, India, Iran, and elsewhere. Much of my work has also been translated into several languages, allowing the Iraqi text to cross the boundaries of place and enter diverse cultural spaces.

I have written several poetry collections that have yet to be published for personal reasons, alongside a number of literary works and projects that remain in preparation. I have also pursued serious experiments in the visual arts, particularly painting, and devoted considerable time to developing that side of my creative practice. For me, art has always been another extension of the poetic sensibility—a different way of looking at the world and perceiving what lies beyond the visible.

I worked in the media field for a period of time, but eventually chose to step away from it, having found that writing offered me the freedom and space I was seeking, and that literature was more closely aligned with my inclinations and personal vision.

Several of my poetry collections and literary works have been published in different countries, particularly in Iran, where I have more than ten published works. Among my most prominent works is my book Hayy La Yurzaq (A Living Man Who Is Not Provided For), which gained notable recognition in Europe and was published by Dar Al-Darawish, alongside several other works that are forthcoming.

I do not regard writing merely as a profession. I see it as a long journey in search of the human being, of the meanings concealed behind things, and of the distance a single word can travel between one heart and another. For this reason, poetry has always been more than a literary form to me; it is my way of seeing the world, and of listening to what remains unspoken.

This is not a complete biography so much as a moment along a journey that remains open. What has been written so far is only a fragment of a literary and human story that continues to take shape, with further territories of language and experience still waiting to be discovered.

Flashes of Being

Malik Al-Batli

1.

The stalk of wheat that bowed

Was not in prayer—

It was merely shielding its neck

From the scythe.

(April 10, 2026)

2.

I knock on the door

Like a child

Returning from a death that forgot him.

3.

From where

Do these bite marks in my heart come?

My Lord…

Did You fashion teeth for the soul?

4.

Would that my mother had never borne me,

Would that I had died before this moment,

A thing lost and forgotten—

Only never to witness

The straying of your scarf…

5.

At times,

Certain lamentations demand

The lengthening of the verse,

Lest they choke

In the poet’s throat.

6.

No night haunts the village

Save for your paleness,

Stretching across the ruins of a sigh.

I bite my lip,

And blood seeps

Onto the shirt of the forgotten.

7.

Thirty years have passed,

Yet your clay lingers beneath my nails,

As though we never parted.

(May 22, 2026)

8.

Healing holds no purpose now;

The wound itself has become my refuge.

And here, among the dust of memories,

I feed upon my thirst for you

And drink my own bleeding.

9.

Once the morning took its first breath,

It cut off the livelihood of the lanterns.

My Lord…

Is even the dawn guilty?

9. (II)

My father was a silent man,

Yet his weary shoes at the doorstep

Told me every detail of his day.

10.

I have no hands to wave,

So I wave with my heart—

And when the heart waves,

It shatters into pieces.

— Malik Al-Batli

Iraqi poet, writer, and journalist