Translation of Free Verse in “cholera”, by the Iraqi Poet Nazik Al-mala’ika

Abstract

“Cholera”, by Nazik al-Mala’ika, a poem written in 1947 as an expression of her feelings in the face of the cholera epidemic that took place in Egypt in that same year, is considered the first Arabic poem composed in free verse, after centuries of the prevalence of the qasida, a poetic form identified by the principles of using monorhyme and the isometric verse. The poem was later part of her 1949 book in which preface she expresses her ideas about poetry. Some critics consider that preface the “first manifesto” of the free verse movement in Arabic. This article presents a translation of “Cholera”, which seeks to highlight the liberating elements of that verse, in addition to debating the notions of such liberation from the perspective of the author of that poem.