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
