Abstract

Statement of the Problem and Objective: This study examines the technique of condensation (takthif) in the flash poems (qasidat al-wamda) of the contemporary Iraqi poet Najat Abdullah, and clarifies the role of this technique in shaping both the form and content of the poems in her collections. The flash poem—widely embraced in the fast-paced modern era—captures an instantaneous, pure poetic moment that flashes in the poet’s mind and is rendered as a highly compressed utterance. In this micro-form, several textual strategies recur, most prominently condensation, paradox or contrast, and a striking closure. While classical poets highlighted condensation mainly through brevity (ijaz), many modern poets extend condensation to form and syntactic composition, coordinating structure with compressed meaning. Because flash poems must convey thought within extremely limited space, they rely on complementary strategies across semantics, layout or form, and syntax to intensify coherence and effect. This article asks: (1) By what methods does condensation manifest in Abdullah’s flash poems at the levels of meaning, form, and syntax? (2) What are the types of condensation she employs, and which type appears most frequently?
Methodology: The research adopts a descriptive–analytical approach. Abdullah’s poetry collections were surveyed in full; given her extensive use of the flash-poem form, condensation is the dominant feature of her corpus. Drawing on classical and modern sources, the study organizes evidence into three analytic levels—meaning, form, and syntactic structure—and extracts, classifies, and analyzes examples accordingly. Techniques considered include figures of speech, juxtaposition or montage, deliberate white space and page layout (including vertical or columnar lineation), use of ellipses and punctuation, pruning of superfluous modifiers or adverbials, omission of one or more clauses or sentences, and defamiliarization through altered word order.
Discussion and Analysis: In Abdullah’s work, condensation is most visible in three domains: meaning, form, and syntax. In meaning (semantic condensation), she deploys allegory, metaphor, proverb, kenning or metonymy, allusion, symbol, paradox, lexical focalization, and artful repetition. By mixing unfamiliar diction with purposeful ambiguity, she opens the poems to multiple readings and dense implication, activating readers’ horizons of expectation—political, social, cultural, martial, and religious. In form (graphic or visual condensation), she uses juxtaposition and montage, spatial arrangement of lines on the page (concrete or visual poetics), strategic white space, vertical and horizontal lineation, and pointed punctuation (including ellipses). These techniques both deepen semantic compression and consolidate the poems’ innovative character. Drawing on adjacent arts—especially cinema—she adapts montage to craft a vivid visual field for the flash poem. In syntax (syntactic condensation), she practices defamiliarization in sentence structure, pares away redundant modifiers, omits clauses or whole sentences, and avoids ornamental excess. To communicate intimate lyric feeling, including explicitly feminine emotion, she often restricts utterance to core sentence elements, giving the flashes the aphoristic precision of gnomic statements that lodge memorably in the reader’s mind.
Findings: Condensation emerges as a foundational pillar of Abdullah’s flash poems across all three domains—meaning, form, and syntax—with semantic condensation occurring most frequently. By combining brevity with defamiliarization, ambiguity, polysemy, omission, visual design, and purposeful gaps, Abdullah transforms the minimal surface of the flash poem into a site of active readerly engagement. The resulting texts invite challenge rather than passive reception, intensifying the compactness of expression while expanding interpretive depth.