Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati (December 19, 1926 – August 3, 1999) was an Iraqi Arab poet. He was a pioneer in his field and defied conventional forms of poetry that had been common for centuries. Biography He was born in Baghdad, near the shrine of the 12th century Sufi Abdel Qadir al-Jilani. Abd al-Wahhab's last name should not be spelled as "Al-Bayyati" (double yy), in Arabic or when being transliterated for another language, as the meaning would change and become one of "the boarder" or "the pupil of a boarding school." This is a common mistake made with the last name Al-Bayati, even in Arabic, as it is assumed to be a name whose root (ba ya ta / ب ي ت) has Arabic origins, and therefore is expected to follow the Arabic faʿʿaal / فعَّال noun type, used to denote intensity, repetition or a profession. The name of Al-Bayati denotes one who comes from the Bayat tribe (قبيلة بيات), one of the largest Turkmen tribes in Iraq, entering the area with the Oghuz Turk migrations of the 9th–12th centuries C.E. In Iraq, although Al-Bayatis know of the tribal source of their name, it does not necessarily indicate a linguistic or cultural identity, as the Bayat tribe there is largely Arabised, through intermarriage and linguistic assimilation. As a man of the city, he lived close to the political heartbeat most of his life—one of his friends, Ahmed Abdel-Moeti Hegazi, said urban centers of "hotels and institutions, cafés and airports" were actually his temporary residences. London, Moscow, Madrid and Baghdad are all represented in his poetry. He attended Baghdad University, and became a teacher after graduating from Dar Al-Mu'allimin (the Teacher's College) in 1950, the same year that he released his first collection of poems, Mala'ika wa Shayatin (Angels and Devils). In addition to teaching in public schools, al-Bayati also edited the popular and widely circulated cultural magazine Al-Thaqafa A-Jadida (The New Culture). In 1954 he left Iraq after being dismissed from his positions because of his radical communist political views and anti-government activity, and moved to Damascus. Although he returned to Damascus at the end of his life, his early wanderings also took him to Cairo, Beirut and a number of Western capitals. Always involved in world affairs, some of al-Bayati's poems are in fact addressed to international figures such as T.S. Eliot and Che Guevara. Not much information is available