A cultural organization formed by Iraqi poets is reaching young Iraqis in university campuses, cafes and the streets. The director of the House of Iraqi Poetry, Hossam al-Saray, told Al-Monitor that over the last 12 months his organization has set up a series of campus and street events to promote social progress and resistance to archaic customs through the work of contemporary poets.

The project started a year ago at several university campuses to expose students to Iraqi poets such as Sargon Boulus, Jean Dammu and Siham Jabbar. Their humanistic style, said Saray, contrasts sharply with folk poetry, which often presents sectarian views.

Various graphic designers also volunteered to make posters and flyers for the House of Iraqi Poetry’s project to put up poems in the streets, schools, cafes and other public places, calling for resistance to some outdated customs in Iraq. The poster campaign, called “The Walls are not for the Clash of Clans,” turned the tribes and clans' practice of writing threats to one another on its head, employing art to promote unity and progress instead, according to Saray. He said that the message behind the campaign is that tribal values and clashes lead Iraqi society backward.

The House of Iraqi Poetry’s work has moral dimensions as well. It aims to change Iraqi society and culture, especially in Baghdad. For example, the group honored the 2016 Karrada bombing victims with poetry about the disaster. As part of a project called “An Act of Loyalty to Karrada,” they hung posters in the Department of Forensic Medicine, where the bodies of the victims were kept, as well as in nearby streets. Saray said, “We were trying to use culture and poetry to express a moral position, in solidarity with the victims and their parents.”