“It has been said that if you throw a stone in Iraq, it’s very likely that it will fall on the head of a poet!” — Dunya Mikhail

Fifteen Iraqi Poets compiles fifteen poems, each written by a prominent twentieth century Iraqi poet. Selected, with commentary, by the award-winning Iraqi-American poet Dunya Mikhail, this little anthology is the perfect introduction to a glorious literature that traces its roots back to ancient Sumer — a poetry written in a state of continuous wars and massacres, where laments often open with a plea to the destroyed homeland: “O Iraq."

Dunya Mikhail was born in Iraq in 1965. While working as a journalist for the Baghdad Observer, she faced increasing threats from the authorities and fled to the United States in the late 1990s. In 2001, she was awarded the UN Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing. Her first poetry book in English, The War Works Hard, was named one of 2005’ twenty-five Books toRemember by the New York Public Library and Diary of A Wave Outside the Sea won the 2010 Arab American Book Award for poetry. Mikhail teaches atOakland University, Michigan.