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Kabbani was born in Damascus to a gifted and comfortable, but not wealthy, family. A great uncle, Abu Khalil Qabbani, was a pioneer of the theatre in late 19th-century Damascus. His niece is the London-based writer, Rana Kabbani. He was deeply affected when he was a teenager by the suicide of his sister, Wisal, because she was unable to marry the man she loved. Kabbani wrote poetry from an early age. While still a very young man, he published his first volume of love poetry at his own expense, or rather at the expense of his illiterate mother, who, recognising her son's talent, sold some of her jewelry to provide the cash. The publication caused a minor scandal among the conservative bourgeoisie of Damascus. Most of his poetic themes were about love and embodied an assault on social and sexual taboos. His view was that social and national liberation was meaningless without sexual liberation. He wrote usually in the first person, often using the voices of women, exploring themes of betrayed love, frustrated love, even of lesbian love. His message was that women should be free to live, work and love as they choose. A Kabbani poem might be like a squib, a firecracker of feeling:

The work of Nizar Kabbani, arguably the most widely read contemporary poet in the Arab world, is usually treated as if he wrote in two categories: erotic poetry and political poetry. Kahf discusses the four types of women characters that emerge from Kabbani's poetic work to vividly enact his fusion of erotics and politics: the Sultan's Wife, the Sultan's Daughter, the Reckless Woman, and the Lady Friend in Exile.

He was no stranger to nationalistic or political poetry, since one of his first published poems in 1939 was of a nationalistic tone In 1954, he published Khubz wa Hashish wa Qamar (Bread, Hashish and a Moon) which quickly became popular because of its harsh criticism of the Arab political world. Kabbani was a socialist and enamored of the pan-Arabism of Nasser. He saw socialism as the appropriate response to the West and to the needs of the Arab people, especially women and the poor. Similarly his 1967 poem \"Hawamish `ala Daftar-al-Naksah (Marginal Notes on the Book of Defeat)\" became a rallying point for many of the enchanted and disenfranchised in the Arab world. Due to its harsh criticism of the Arab regimes, Kabbani was censored and banned from many Arab countries, including Egypt where his hero Nasser, also rejected him.

Syria Nizar Kabbani. Republic of Love: Selected Poems in English and Arabic. Lisa Kavchak, ed. Nayef al-Kalali, tr. London. Kegan Paul (Columbia University Press, distr.). 2003. 234 pages. $76.50. ISBN 0-7103-0680-6