The Poetics of Titles in the Works of Modern Hilla Poets (Jabbar al-Kawaz, Hamid Saeed, and Abdul-Amir Khalil Murad as a Model)

Abstract

The title is considered one of the most significant textual thresholds, serving as a gateway into the world of the poem and a mirror that reveals the entrances to the poetic text. It is also one of the most important means of attraction and seduction employed by the poet to draw the recipient. The title is not merely a threshold to the text, but rather a structure integrally connected to it, forming a complementary relationship in which the title completes the poetic text semantically, syntactically, and phonetically. For this reason, poets pay close attention to its semantic, structural, and phonetic dimensions, as these aspects uncover hidden layers within the text. The title thus represents a key through which the reader can access the entrances of the poetic text. Consequently, modern poets have shown great interest in the title, as it constitutes the threshold upon which the recipient stands to perceive the concealed dimensions of the poem revealing the poet’s intentions and aesthetic visionAesthetic and intellectual dimensions have been central to the work of modern poets from Al-Hilla—such as Jabar Al-Kawaz, Hamid Saeed, and Abdul Amir Khalil Murad—who devoted exceptional attention to poetic titles. They treated titles as independent components in their own right, imbuing them with density, semantic richness, and deviation from convention. Although the poetic title constitutes the gateway to the text and one of its most important aesthetic and semantic elements, Iraqi critical studies have often focused on the internal structure of the poem (theme, imagery, rhythm) while neglecting the title as a parallel text that guides the reader and establishes the horizon of reception. For modern poets of Al-Hilla, including Jabar Al-Kawaz, Hamid Saeed, and Abdul Amir Khalil Murad, the title emerges as a textual marker charged with cultural and historical connotations   However, this topic has not been examined in depth within an independent critical framework. Here emerges the central research question: How does the poetics of the title manifest in the collections of the modern poets of al-Hilla—Jabbar al-Kawaz, Hamid Saeed, and Abdul Amir Khalil Murad—and what role does the title play in constructing meaning and guiding the horizon of reception within modern Iraqi poetry?   The significance of this study lies in its contribution of a new dimension to Iraqi poetic criticism by focusing on the title as a parallel text. It also highlights the contributions of al-Hilla’s modern poets to the development of contemporary poetic structures, while opening avenues for readers and scholars to better understand the relationship between the title and the poetic text, and the ways in which the title directs the process of reception.