This paper will argue that transgressive, colloquial, and jocular poetic forms have a key political function in the medieval Middle East. Although largely unacknowledged in extant scholarship, the social and political importance of this literature is demonstrable in the late Abbasid period, on which this study focuses. Al-SaaHib ibn 'Abbaad, the Buwayhid vizier and accomplished Arabic literary figure, is distinguished in the Arabic canon as a patron and author of ‘low’ literature. (‘Low’ is a loose translation of the labels-—e.g., sakhiif, fuHsh-—Arab rhetoricians give to ribald mujuun poetry and colloquial works such as the QaaSiida saasaaniyya, written at Ibn 'Abbaad’s behest.) His dual roles as author and political authority, as well as his documented taste for sexually explicit verse and lewd invectives, recommend him for this analysis of literature in political context. Ibn 'Abbaad’s status as Persian-descended Arabophone represents a challenge to his legitimacy in Arabic official culture. That legitimacy translates into political efficacy, as the very idea of political authority in his milieu hinges on Classical Arabic competence and eloquence. As this relation is destabilizing as the Abbasid empire fades, Ibn 'Abbaad faces the dual challenge of establishing his mastery of the rarefied Classical tradition, and maintaining dominance over his provincial subjects—-a group that includes prominent critics of his Mu'tazilii school; the great prose writer Abuu Hayyaan al-TawHiidii; and the famous street characters the Banuu Saasaan, whose encoded colloquial Arabic is glossed in the QaSiida Saasaaniyya. This paper posits that Ibn 'Abbaad’s penchant for ‘low’ Arabic forms, contrary to al-TawHiidii’s claim of a moral fault, is the vizier’s response to a set of political problems in his linguistically complex cultural environment. In Arabic registers that are canonically marginal and unclassical, he builds cultural capital (to use Pierre Bourdieu’s term), i.e., a social form of currency and legitimacy that he saves up, exchanges, and distributes in his court. This cultural capital is just as essential to late-Abbasid political life as is the more famous Abbasid praise poetry.