Today’s leading Sorani poets grew up alongside the political parties of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). What is now “the state” was once a Kurdish guerrilla force in which these poets served shoulder-to-shoulder with future political leaders. Both poet and politician survived on bright ideals. As time passed, disappointment arrived: nepotism became common, meritocracy failed to take hold, educational and health reforms were slow to non-existent, women’s rights lagged. Poets began to articulate the collision between revolution and governing. For poets and parties, this is a multi-faceted rift. Bekas, like the feminist poet Kajal Ahmad, served in the peshmerga during the Kurdish uprisings of the 1980’s and early ’90’s. As soldiers, radio operators, and journalists, these poets sacrificed to bring the KRG into existence. Reacting against a Turkish or Arab government, the artist reinforces rather than puts at risk his or her Kurdishness. Criticizing a Kurdish state for which one fought is not only delicate, but heart-breaking. More, the two traditionally significant parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), have financially backed their preferred poets, further complicating an artist’s ability or desire to find fault. In a region where neither academia nor publishing (copyright is not enforced) can sustain poets, party funding has been crucial income. With many reasons to stay silent, poets have spoken. Ahmad now calls her homeland the “hard-hearted lover.” She censures the government, saying, “The nation we have now is not the nation I worked for.” Bekas, the PUK’s favored poet until his death in 2013, abandoned political subject matter and championed a broken free verse; these are culturally dramatic statements from a man who wrote the PUK anthem, militaristic in its rhetoric and meter. Abdulla Pashew turned away from personal friendships with major political figures to embrace exile. He attended graduate school in Russia, becoming fluent in Russian, and acting as perhaps the most vocal and direct critic of the Kurdish political parties. He still resides in Europe. These established poets embody a rift between Kurdish poets and the Kurdish state that has only just begun. The critical distance that Sorani poets have created from the state gives vent to rising frustrations among the Kurdish people. Poets continue to have widespread authority, but today it emerges from rebuking rather than promoting the state.