Al-Azzawi on being an Iraqi Poet

"Of course we are Iraqi poets and the fate and destiny of Iraq is very important for us. Our families, my brother, sisters, they are living 'til now in Iraq. We have lived there and I have s...(?) always and I feel it always...I carry Iraq, I have carried Iraq always in my heart and on my shoulder. We feel responsible for what is happening there. As Iraqis, as normal citizens from Iraq, but also as writers, as poets, we are responsible, I feel. I have to do something in my writing, but I don't write, as you have seen, my poems directly or politically. I have tried to reflect the essence of struggle, to give my readers a new soul, a new ghost, to do something, to fight for their freedom against the dictatorship in Iraq. But I want also to reach not only my Iraqi readers. Also I hope to reach with my writings, my Arab readers and also all the readers from the whole world. I hope. That is very difficult, not easy."
- Fadhil Al-Azzawi (2002)