I'm personally a bit of a fan of the Qasida style of poetry after I read Desert Tracings : Six Classic Arabian Odes from Wesleyan University Press. Antarah is of a similar background to the poets in that collection, Pre-Islamic and embedded in a bardic tradition, but has the fun little twist of being of african descent as well as arab, his mother being an Ethiopian slave of his warrior father of the Abs tribe. I can't do the poems justice so I will provide an extract here.

Men find glory in chains
women in strings of pearls.
I get drunk on the murky binge
of battle, not strong wine.
Fate, don’t go easy on me!
What I seek lies close at hand.
Without ʿ Ablah
my comfort is Death.
Death, ʿ Ablah, is near.
Weep if you have any tears
and mourn me more
than jealous Fate does.
Let them kill me—
my deeds will live.
I weep for your capture, ʿ Ablah
calling in vain for ʿ Antar to appear.
Daughter of Mālik, I faced
the Persians in deserts choked
with soldiers, the armies surging
then dispersing
attacked by lions clad in mail.
For their criminal acts
our lances bore witness,
our swords passed sentence.
I drove the enemy back and day
went dark as mountains quaked.

War Songs

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War Songs (2018)

War Songs (2018)

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