A Study of the Poem ‘A Bird Accepted a Massacre’ on the Basis of Issam Wasel’s Semiotic Method

Semiotics is one of the new critical approaches whose task is to study the sign system of the text or discourse and the anatomy of the text and discourse at the level of symbols and signs. In fact, it is a critical attempt delving into the textual abyss to reach the textual truth, which is the meaning and the textual embodiment after overcoming the apparent sign of the text or discourse. This study aims to investigate the poem ‘A Bird Accepted a Massacre’ by Ali Jaafar Al-Alaq, from the Diwan of Sayyid Al-Wahshetin (2006). The analysis is done using Issam’s integrated theory for reaching full awareness of this poem by relying on the semiotic method and in the various sub-axes. This poem overflows with signs, symbols, and semiotic characteristics, from the title to the last word. Ali Jaafar Al-Alaq, besides employing civilization and civilizational and cultural references and data in his poetry is very keen on linguistic selection and employing the vocabulary in his poetry stemming from awareness and knowledge of the function of language and vocabulary.In fact, the poet establishes the relations and bonds between his poetic text and between the recipient and the poem. It enjoys a delicate poetic awareness and has many semiotic energies from the title as the richness of the text to the text. The poet in this poem is very keen on poetic expression of the predicament and abysmal Iraqi reality as a result of the brutal aggression. What draws attention, as revealed by the semiotic act, is the semantic relationship between the title and the poetic text in the relationship, as we notice in the poem. This title with semantic charge and abundant semiotic energies, which is a shorthand for the connotations inherent in the text and semiotic awareness, reveals that the poet, by formulating this title, expresses the states of labor, the exit from the whirlpool and the massacre, the moment of joy and openness, and the perpetuation of life in the land of Iraq after defeating the factors of occupation and siege. The conclusions in this poem with the semiotic property and the organizational structure of the sentences and the textual structures of this poem serve the purposes of the text and enhance the connotations emanating from the symbols and connotations.When studying the global structure of the poetic text, we see the three sides at the level of textual factors between the sender, the assistant, and the opposition. The rhetorical groupings consisting of various words and signs associated with the textual representatives and the semantic field associated with death and life through the exploitation of suggestive words and according to the semiotic square of Grimas were observed. The results of the study also showed the relationship based on the formation of the negative level and the negative state of the land as a result of war and aggression.