What do you think?
Rate this book
Adonis: Selected Poems
The first major career-spanning collection of the poems of Adonis, widely acknowledged as the most important poet working in Arabic today
Born in Syria in 1930, Adonis is one of the most celebrated poets of the Arabic-speaking world. His poems have earned international acclaim, and his influence on Arabic literature has been likened to that of T. S. Eliot’s on English-language verse. This volume serves as the first comprehensive survey of Adonis’s work, allowing English readers to admire the arc of a remarkable literary career through the labors of the poet’s own handpicked translator, Khaled Mattawa.
Experimental in form and prophetic in tone, Adonis’s poetry sings exultantly of both the sweet promise of eros and the lingering problems of the self. Steeped in the anguish of exile and the uncertainty of existence, Adonis demonstrates the poet’s profound affection for Arabic and European lyrical traditions even as his poems work to destabilize those very aesthetic and moral sensibilities. This collection positions the work of Adonis within the pantheon of the great poets of exile, including César Vallejo, Joseph Brodsky, and Paul Celan, providing for English readers the most complete vision yet of the work of the man whom the cultural critic Edward Said called “today’s most daring and provocative Arab poet.”
Born in Syria in 1930, Adonis is one of the most celebrated poets of the Arabic-speaking world. His poems have earned international acclaim, and his influence on Arabic literature has been likened to that of T. S. Eliot’s on English-language verse. This volume serves as the first comprehensive survey of Adonis’s work, allowing English readers to admire the arc of a remarkable literary career through the labors of the poet’s own handpicked translator, Khaled Mattawa.
Experimental in form and prophetic in tone, Adonis’s poetry sings exultantly of both the sweet promise of eros and the lingering problems of the self. Steeped in the anguish of exile and the uncertainty of existence, Adonis demonstrates the poet’s profound affection for Arabic and European lyrical traditions even as his poems work to destabilize those very aesthetic and moral sensibilities. This collection positions the work of Adonis within the pantheon of the great poets of exile, including César Vallejo, Joseph Brodsky, and Paul Celan, providing for English readers the most complete vision yet of the work of the man whom the cultural critic Edward Said called “today’s most daring and provocative Arab poet.”
402 pages, Paperback
First published October 19, 2010
59 people are currently reading
1586 people want to read
About the author
Adonis
290 books206 followersAdonis was born Ali Ahmed Said in the village of Al Qassabin in Syria, in 1930, to a family of farmers, the oldest of six children. At the age of nineteen, he adopted the name Adonis (also spelled Adunis), after the Greek god of fertility, with the hopes that the new name would result in newspaper publication of his poems.
Although his family could not afford to send Adonis to school, his father taught him to read poetry and the Qu'ran, and memorize poems while he worked in the fields. When he was fourteen, Adonis read a poem to the president of Syria who was visiting a nearby town. The impressed president offered to grant a request, to which the young Adonis responded that he wanted to attend school. The president quickly made arrangements for Adonis to attend a French-run high school, after which he studied philosophy at Damascus University.
In 1956, after a year-long imprisonment for political activities, Adonis fled Syria for Beirut, Lebanon. He joined a vibrant community of artists, writers, and exiles in Beirut, and co-founded and edited Sh'ir, and later Muwaqaf, both progressive journals of poetry and politics. He studied at St. Joseph University in Beirut and obtained his Doctorat d'Etat in 1973.
Considered one of the Arab world's greatest living poets, Adonis is the author of numerous collections, including Mihyar of Damascus (BOA Editions, 2008), A Time Between Ashes and Roses (Syracuse University Press, 2004); If Only the Sea Could Sleep (2003); The Pages of Day and Night (2001); Transformations of the Lover (1982); The Book of the Five Poems (1980); The Blood of Adonis (1971), winner of the Syria-Lebanon Award of the International Poetry Forum; Songs of Mihyar the Damascene (1961), Leaves in the Wind (1958), and First Poems (1957). He is also an essayist, an editor of anthologies, a theoretician of poetics, and the translator of several works from French into Arabic.
Over the course of his career, Adonis has fearlessly experimented with form and content, pioneering the prose poem in Arabic, and taking a influential, and sometimes controversial role in Arab modernism. In a 2002 interview in the New York Times, Adonis declared: '"There is no more culture in the Arab world. It's finished. Culturally speaking, we are a part of Western culture, but only as consumers, not as creators."
Adonis's awards and honors include the first ever International Nâzim Hikmet Poetry Award, the Syria-Lebanon Best Poet Award, and the Highest Award of the International Poem Biennial in Brussels. He was elected as Stephen Mallarme Academy Member in Paris in 1983. He has taught at the Lebanese University as a professor of Arabic literature, at Damascus University, and at the Sorbonne. He has been a Lebanese citizen since 1961 and currently lives in Paris.
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/...
Although his family could not afford to send Adonis to school, his father taught him to read poetry and the Qu'ran, and memorize poems while he worked in the fields. When he was fourteen, Adonis read a poem to the president of Syria who was visiting a nearby town. The impressed president offered to grant a request, to which the young Adonis responded that he wanted to attend school. The president quickly made arrangements for Adonis to attend a French-run high school, after which he studied philosophy at Damascus University.
In 1956, after a year-long imprisonment for political activities, Adonis fled Syria for Beirut, Lebanon. He joined a vibrant community of artists, writers, and exiles in Beirut, and co-founded and edited Sh'ir, and later Muwaqaf, both progressive journals of poetry and politics. He studied at St. Joseph University in Beirut and obtained his Doctorat d'Etat in 1973.
Considered one of the Arab world's greatest living poets, Adonis is the author of numerous collections, including Mihyar of Damascus (BOA Editions, 2008), A Time Between Ashes and Roses (Syracuse University Press, 2004); If Only the Sea Could Sleep (2003); The Pages of Day and Night (2001); Transformations of the Lover (1982); The Book of the Five Poems (1980); The Blood of Adonis (1971), winner of the Syria-Lebanon Award of the International Poetry Forum; Songs of Mihyar the Damascene (1961), Leaves in the Wind (1958), and First Poems (1957). He is also an essayist, an editor of anthologies, a theoretician of poetics, and the translator of several works from French into Arabic.
Over the course of his career, Adonis has fearlessly experimented with form and content, pioneering the prose poem in Arabic, and taking a influential, and sometimes controversial role in Arab modernism. In a 2002 interview in the New York Times, Adonis declared: '"There is no more culture in the Arab world. It's finished. Culturally speaking, we are a part of Western culture, but only as consumers, not as creators."
Adonis's awards and honors include the first ever International Nâzim Hikmet Poetry Award, the Syria-Lebanon Best Poet Award, and the Highest Award of the International Poem Biennial in Brussels. He was elected as Stephen Mallarme Academy Member in Paris in 1983. He has taught at the Lebanese University as a professor of Arabic literature, at Damascus University, and at the Sorbonne. He has been a Lebanese citizen since 1961 and currently lives in Paris.
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
July 11, 2020
How can I call what is between us a past?
[...]
How can I say then that our love
has been taken by the wrinkled hands of time
*
What did we lose, what was lost in us?
To whom do these distances belong that separated us
and that now bind us?
Are we still one
or have we both broken into pieces? How gentle this dust is-
Its body now, and mine, at this very minute
are one and the same
*
Cleanse your memory
of every moment that did not know how to meet you.
*
I measured myself to the woman I imagined
I went out seeking her but found
nothing bearing a trace of her—
no bridge
between my body and my dream
This is how I began to live in what I imagined—
how delusion and I became friends
*
These days, these days of fatigue, have their own books, each step a word. And the words do
not end.
[...]
How can I say then that our love
has been taken by the wrinkled hands of time
*
What did we lose, what was lost in us?
To whom do these distances belong that separated us
and that now bind us?
Are we still one
or have we both broken into pieces? How gentle this dust is-
Its body now, and mine, at this very minute
are one and the same
*
Cleanse your memory
of every moment that did not know how to meet you.
*
I measured myself to the woman I imagined
I went out seeking her but found
nothing bearing a trace of her—
no bridge
between my body and my dream
This is how I began to live in what I imagined—
how delusion and I became friends
*
These days, these days of fatigue, have their own books, each step a word. And the words do
not end.
April 17, 2020
Beautiful poems! My favourite was 'Candlelight'. It is long and epic and beautiful. It has these legendary lines :
"How can you read when you are sitting inside the book you read, and
as you find yourself moving within each line of it? How can you read when you are what is
written and what is read?""
"How can you read when you are sitting inside the book you read, and
as you find yourself moving within each line of it? How can you read when you are what is
written and what is read?""
March 10, 2012
adonis, while relatively unknown amongst english-speaking audiences, is perhaps the most acclaimed modern poet in the arab world. the syrian-born octogenarian, also an important critic, is widely considered a perennial contender for the nobel prize. prior to this collection, very little of adonis's poetry has been available in english. selected poems, however, may well come to be the definitive edition of his works in translation. spanning some fifty years, this collection features poems from fourteen distinct works, beginning with 1957's first poems and concluding with 2008's printer of the planets' books.
translated from the arabic by khaled mattawa (himself an award-winning poet), selected poems exemplifies the many disparate styles adonis has employed over the decades. as the collection spans his entire literary career, it affords adonis's work the appropriate context in which a reader can bear witness to the (often bewildering) range of his poetry. mattawa's introduction is an indispensable resource for anyone new to the syrian poet's work, and serves as invaluable guide to understanding not only adonis as a person, but also the many themes and cultural references that inform and shape his poetry. mattawa expounds at great length on the traditions of arabic poetry, and situates adonis's work within its appropriate background, contrasting his many innovative and experimental styles against the more conventional forms of the genre. mattawa also outlines the progression of adonis's poetry, going book by book to illustrate the evolution of format and content that has characterized his writing.
adonis explores a wide range of subjects within his poetry, with recurring motifs to be found throughout. poems ruminating on the concept of identity proliferate, though adonis also considers love, nature, religion, and war amongst other topics. amongst the more notable (and lengthy) poems included in the collection are "season of tears," "body" (excerpted from the 400-page singular in a plural form), "this is my name," and "candlelight." selected poems will most likely serve not only as an introduction to adonis's poetry for many, but also as the decisive english translation for which readers, critics, and scholars will return to for years and, perhaps, decades to come.
translated from the arabic by khaled mattawa (himself an award-winning poet), selected poems exemplifies the many disparate styles adonis has employed over the decades. as the collection spans his entire literary career, it affords adonis's work the appropriate context in which a reader can bear witness to the (often bewildering) range of his poetry. mattawa's introduction is an indispensable resource for anyone new to the syrian poet's work, and serves as invaluable guide to understanding not only adonis as a person, but also the many themes and cultural references that inform and shape his poetry. mattawa expounds at great length on the traditions of arabic poetry, and situates adonis's work within its appropriate background, contrasting his many innovative and experimental styles against the more conventional forms of the genre. mattawa also outlines the progression of adonis's poetry, going book by book to illustrate the evolution of format and content that has characterized his writing.
adonis explores a wide range of subjects within his poetry, with recurring motifs to be found throughout. poems ruminating on the concept of identity proliferate, though adonis also considers love, nature, religion, and war amongst other topics. amongst the more notable (and lengthy) poems included in the collection are "season of tears," "body" (excerpted from the 400-page singular in a plural form), "this is my name," and "candlelight." selected poems will most likely serve not only as an introduction to adonis's poetry for many, but also as the decisive english translation for which readers, critics, and scholars will return to for years and, perhaps, decades to come.
bullet
a bullet spins
oiled with the eloquence of civilization.
it tears the face of dawn. no minute passes
in which this scene is not replayed.
the audience
takes another gulp of life, and livens up.
no curtains drawn
no shadows, no intermission:
the scene is history.
the lead actor, civilization.
February 8, 2021
36
Death holds us in its embrace,
reckless and modest,
carries us, a secret with his secrets
and turns our multitudes into one.
---
38
In roses, inside my eyes
and in my soul, there is a morning
in which I erase and am erased.
I love, I love beauty
and in it I worship my follies,
the ones I found on my own,
and the ones to which I was led.
---
41
Stay here, our hearts, do not leave us,
do not dare your fate
among hunger and bitter despair,
stay here on this soil and grow
and tomorrow it will be said
from this earth a struggle arose,
fed on our arms,
nourished by our call,
and endless search
for a new dawn.
---
64
The wound is a sign,
and the wound is a crossing too.
---
121
A bullet spins
oiled with the eloquence of civilization.
It tears the face of dawn. No minute passes
in which this scene is not replayed.
The audience
takes another gulp of life, and livens up.
No curtains drawn
no shadows, no intermission:
The scene is history,
The lead actor, civilization.
---
125
A coffin that wears the face of a child,
a book
written inside the guts of a crow,
a beast trudging forward holding a flower,
a stone
breathing inside the lungs of a madman.
This is it.
This is the twentieth century.
---
183
My body is made of things contradicting each other
It ties its shroud to the foot of the sun
and says to a moth
with the color of my face
'write me on your wings
and burn.'
---
201
Your body is my oblivion
and it shades me
Your body is your realm and I am its winged beasts
your body a rainbow and I am climate and change
---
210
Children read the book of the present, and say,
this is a time that blossoms
in the wombs of torn limbs.
---
250
I used to sleep alone,
afraid that solitude might leave me
Dreaming is a shore
for a ship that never docks.
Nonetheless, I still belong to dreaming.
---
274
An age - a brewery from which
the victims' blood
and the murderers' saliva
pour out together
---
291
Even the wind wants
to become a cart
pulled by butterflies
---
292
Love and dreams are two parentheses
Between them I place my body
and discover the world
My wishes are flowers
staining my days
I was wounded early,
and early I learned
that wounds made me
---
294
Your childhood is a village.
You will never cross its boundaries
no matter how far you go.
---
374
Maybe
there is no love on earth
except the one we imagine
we will win
some day
Death holds us in its embrace,
reckless and modest,
carries us, a secret with his secrets
and turns our multitudes into one.
---
38
In roses, inside my eyes
and in my soul, there is a morning
in which I erase and am erased.
I love, I love beauty
and in it I worship my follies,
the ones I found on my own,
and the ones to which I was led.
---
41
Stay here, our hearts, do not leave us,
do not dare your fate
among hunger and bitter despair,
stay here on this soil and grow
and tomorrow it will be said
from this earth a struggle arose,
fed on our arms,
nourished by our call,
and endless search
for a new dawn.
---
64
The wound is a sign,
and the wound is a crossing too.
---
121
A bullet spins
oiled with the eloquence of civilization.
It tears the face of dawn. No minute passes
in which this scene is not replayed.
The audience
takes another gulp of life, and livens up.
No curtains drawn
no shadows, no intermission:
The scene is history,
The lead actor, civilization.
---
125
A coffin that wears the face of a child,
a book
written inside the guts of a crow,
a beast trudging forward holding a flower,
a stone
breathing inside the lungs of a madman.
This is it.
This is the twentieth century.
---
183
My body is made of things contradicting each other
It ties its shroud to the foot of the sun
and says to a moth
with the color of my face
'write me on your wings
and burn.'
---
201
Your body is my oblivion
and it shades me
Your body is your realm and I am its winged beasts
your body a rainbow and I am climate and change
---
210
Children read the book of the present, and say,
this is a time that blossoms
in the wombs of torn limbs.
---
250
I used to sleep alone,
afraid that solitude might leave me
Dreaming is a shore
for a ship that never docks.
Nonetheless, I still belong to dreaming.
---
274
An age - a brewery from which
the victims' blood
and the murderers' saliva
pour out together
---
291
Even the wind wants
to become a cart
pulled by butterflies
---
292
Love and dreams are two parentheses
Between them I place my body
and discover the world
My wishes are flowers
staining my days
I was wounded early,
and early I learned
that wounds made me
---
294
Your childhood is a village.
You will never cross its boundaries
no matter how far you go.
---
374
Maybe
there is no love on earth
except the one we imagine
we will win
some day
December 30, 2025
Damascus / went adrift, Baghdad fell to yearning / The sword of history is broken on the face of my country
THE MARTYR
When I saw night in his swollen eyelids
and found in his face
no date palms
no stars,
I stormed around his head
like the wind
and broke like a reed.
THE MARTYR
When I saw night in his swollen eyelids
and found in his face
no date palms
no stars,
I stormed around his head
like the wind
and broke like a reed.
December 31, 2024
BANGER !!!
Read
July 20, 2014A remarkable accomplishment, both for Mattawa as a translator, and of course for Adonis himself as a pioneering artist in his language. I'm only just beginning my education in Arabic poetry, but the importance of Adonis as a modernizer and voice of exploration is crucial.
February 27, 2024
"What shall I say to the body I abandoned
in the rubble of the house
in which I was born?
No one can narrate my childhood
except those stars that flicker above it
and that leave footprints
on the evening’s path."
in the rubble of the house
in which I was born?
No one can narrate my childhood
except those stars that flicker above it
and that leave footprints
on the evening’s path."
December 13, 2019
Goodness what a talented man
May 22, 2020
Si se ha apartado de la poesía, volver a ella será un gusto con estos versos sirios. Líricas que hacen de temas políticos y sociales, una obra de arte.
February 8, 2022
Membuka tahun ini dengan sebuah kumpulan puisi yang padu.
May 12, 2015
I would give 6 stars for the magnificent work of Khaled Mattawa and the luxurious, stunning, rich, multilayered, fiery, voluptuous and elegant language of Adonis, a week or so of reading and this book transported me everywhere.
I have read many poems and texts in this book in Arabic because Adonis was the first poet I discovered in my house, as a curious teenager I read the two books and never fully understood his poetry, now after a decade I still read with the first curiosity and astonishment in front of his language, that's why the English translation was so intimate and close to my heart, perfect as a polished diamond..I can't deny that parts of the book were vague to me and I felt a bit lost reading them, but I truly loved and enjoyed the others especially songs of Mihyar of Damascus, a time between ashes and roses, my beginnings with Adonis..
I have read many poems and texts in this book in Arabic because Adonis was the first poet I discovered in my house, as a curious teenager I read the two books and never fully understood his poetry, now after a decade I still read with the first curiosity and astonishment in front of his language, that's why the English translation was so intimate and close to my heart, perfect as a polished diamond..I can't deny that parts of the book were vague to me and I felt a bit lost reading them, but I truly loved and enjoyed the others especially songs of Mihyar of Damascus, a time between ashes and roses, my beginnings with Adonis..
November 1, 2019
Saya baca buku ini gratisan dari Libgen, maklum gak punya banyak uang untuk beli. Saya suka sama puisi Adonis karena puisinya tergolong sajak bebas mirip seperti puisinya Walt Whitman dari segi teknik, saya memang bukan ahli puisi, tapi entah kenapa saya tak terlalu suka dengan puisi-puisi yang rimanya sangat beraturan, soalnya kalau dibaca mirip kaya suara repetitif yang agak mengganggu. Saya dulu ingat waktu sekitar satu setengah tahun yang lalu baca kumpulan puisinya Rudyard Kipling versi Wordsworth Edition, akhirnya saya jual ke lapak buku di stasiun UI karena alasan rima yang ditulis Kipling itu enggak banget, walaupun dia pemenang Nobel Sastra juga, kalau dibandingkan sama puisinya Adonis, Whitman atau TS Eliot, puisinya Kipling kalah jauh kemana-mana.
January 23, 2020
This collection of poems is dazzling. I've rarely read another poet who conjures metaphors like Adunis. After reading this book, I think it'd be interesting to see if another poet impresses me so much!
How can I call what's between us a past?
"What is between us is not a story
not a human apple or a Jinn's
not a sign of a season
or a place
not anything that could be historicized"
This is what the vicissitudes inside us say
How can I say then that our love
has been taken by the wrinkled hands of time
How can I call what's between us a past?
"What is between us is not a story
not a human apple or a Jinn's
not a sign of a season
or a place
not anything that could be historicized"
This is what the vicissitudes inside us say
How can I say then that our love
has been taken by the wrinkled hands of time
August 22, 2021
No review for this one. Just that it was DENSE and made me wish I knew more about Arab poetry to appreciate it more.
January 24, 2024
Indah sekaligus getir.
Puisinya menggunakan bahasa tinggi dg sarat makna yang mendalam, hingga banyak penggalan puisi yang tak ku mengerti makna nya, namun terasa gejolak emosinya.
Berikut beberapa bait yang kusuka :
Akan aku ulangi apa yang pernah diucapkan;
Suatu hal yang diketahui oleh kehidupan
Dan disadari oleh kenyataan
Akan aku ulangi apa yang pernah diucapkan:
Khitan perempuan adalah pembunuhan
Menjadikan vagina sebagai pertunjukan adalah pembunuhan
Di sanalah awan gelap saling beradu
Dan berbagai pertanyaan runtuh
Setiap perempuan yang dikhitan adalah mayat
(hening)
Itulah perempuan
Separuh dari tubuhnya adalah rahim dan sanggama
Sisanya adalah keburukan
Begitulah orang-orang melukiskannya
Begitulah orang-orang menggambarkannya
Zaman-laba-laba
Menyeret langkahnya ke permukaan gitar.
Puisinya menggunakan bahasa tinggi dg sarat makna yang mendalam, hingga banyak penggalan puisi yang tak ku mengerti makna nya, namun terasa gejolak emosinya.
Berikut beberapa bait yang kusuka :
Akan aku ulangi apa yang pernah diucapkan;
Suatu hal yang diketahui oleh kehidupan
Dan disadari oleh kenyataan
Akan aku ulangi apa yang pernah diucapkan:
Khitan perempuan adalah pembunuhan
Menjadikan vagina sebagai pertunjukan adalah pembunuhan
Di sanalah awan gelap saling beradu
Dan berbagai pertanyaan runtuh
Setiap perempuan yang dikhitan adalah mayat
(hening)
Itulah perempuan
Separuh dari tubuhnya adalah rahim dan sanggama
Sisanya adalah keburukan
Begitulah orang-orang melukiskannya
Begitulah orang-orang menggambarkannya
Zaman-laba-laba
Menyeret langkahnya ke permukaan gitar.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 6, 2019
Poesia árabe, de um escritor ainda obscuro no Brasil.
Um trecho (adaptado - português):
O que é?
A morte:
carro que leva
do útero da mulher
ao útero da terra
A escuridão:
útero grávido de sol
O sonho:
elevar o real
ao nível da fantasia
A lágrima:
guerra perdida pelo corpo
A natureza:
língua do olhar
para escrever a visão
A suposição:
mão que apalpa o corpo da escuridão
A memória:
casa habitada só
por coisas ausentes
O segredo:
porta fechada
quando aberta se quebra
A surpresa:
pássaro
que escapou da gaiola da realidade
O beijo:
colheita visível
de fruto invisível
A história:
um cego a tocar tambor
(Adônis - Guia para viajar pelas florestas do sentido)
Um trecho (adaptado - português):
O que é?
A morte:
carro que leva
do útero da mulher
ao útero da terra
A escuridão:
útero grávido de sol
O sonho:
elevar o real
ao nível da fantasia
A lágrima:
guerra perdida pelo corpo
A natureza:
língua do olhar
para escrever a visão
A suposição:
mão que apalpa o corpo da escuridão
A memória:
casa habitada só
por coisas ausentes
O segredo:
porta fechada
quando aberta se quebra
A surpresa:
pássaro
que escapou da gaiola da realidade
O beijo:
colheita visível
de fruto invisível
A história:
um cego a tocar tambor
(Adônis - Guia para viajar pelas florestas do sentido)
August 8, 2025
I'm going to write a longer review after I've let this settle a little and done a bit of digging but this, translated by Khaled Mattawa, is excellent poetry. It isn't always easy to understand, but it rewards a bit of work. I got this from the library but, at some point, I'd like a copy of my own. This is porcupine prickled with sticky labels marking whole poems or phrases I liked. I also found myself thinking 'that line would make a great title for a novel' quite a lot.
It has also opened whole hinterlands of other poetry: older Arabic poets, modern Arabic poets, and French poets - whose influence is there in Adonis. All in translation alas. Because my Arabic is non-existent and my French tres rusty.
I'll come back to this though.
It has also opened whole hinterlands of other poetry: older Arabic poets, modern Arabic poets, and French poets - whose influence is there in Adonis. All in translation alas. Because my Arabic is non-existent and my French tres rusty.
I'll come back to this though.
August 19, 2017
This is a volume of brilliant, beautiful poetry. And I don't usually like modernist poetry all that much.
As you want any poet to do, he creates provocative images and metaphors by artfully using a word or idea in a way that is both familiar and alien. Plus, his poetry is affected by the complex and often violent history of his Syrian homeland. I understand why Adonis is often listed as a potential Nobel prize winner. In fact, I'm surprised he hasn't already won.
As you want any poet to do, he creates provocative images and metaphors by artfully using a word or idea in a way that is both familiar and alien. Plus, his poetry is affected by the complex and often violent history of his Syrian homeland. I understand why Adonis is often listed as a potential Nobel prize winner. In fact, I'm surprised he hasn't already won.
November 1, 2017
Great selection of captivating poems. Adonis's voice is so powerful and the images so pure and raw, it's like he was painting but instead of brush he hold pen, instead of colors he used ink and we don't look at the canvas but we absorb the words. Khaled Mattawa gave us someting remarkable - his translation and foreword are worth of huge praise.
Adam
Adam whispered to me
choking on a sigh,
on silence and whimpers -
"I am not the world's father.
I never saw heaven.
Take me to God."
(p. 56)
Adam
Adam whispered to me
choking on a sigh,
on silence and whimpers -
"I am not the world's father.
I never saw heaven.
Take me to God."
(p. 56)
July 2, 2022
I recommend it if you haven’t yet read this book! Very thought provoking.
This one in particular has kept my mind captive for the past 3 days;
I have a longing other than longing,
other than what fills the chests of the years.
Things approach it as if
they know no other destination.
They say: Without it we would not have become.
As if it is greater than itself,
this longing rises, extends, and is never satisfied.
It wishes to release itself from itself
and to fasten sky to earth.
This one in particular has kept my mind captive for the past 3 days;
I have a longing other than longing,
other than what fills the chests of the years.
Things approach it as if
they know no other destination.
They say: Without it we would not have become.
As if it is greater than itself,
this longing rises, extends, and is never satisfied.
It wishes to release itself from itself
and to fasten sky to earth.
April 2, 2023
i never really felt any evocation of works of art that's just so over-reaching onto your depths and their own simultaneously that every words, every imagery, every sentences, every visions sort of encapsulates everything there is within the fire and the soil of the world until i read this books
something worth to define your life around really, that recognizing magic as something to be made from themselves and their own depths, my god
something worth to define your life around really, that recognizing magic as something to be made from themselves and their own depths, my god
July 2, 2020
I just wanna thank tumblr.com for introducing me to Adonis' poetry. I really enjoyed this collection.
Favorite poems:
Secrets
They Say I'm Done For
Song
The Wound
Psalm
Seasons of Tears
The Beginning of Doubt
The Beginning of the Name
The Child Running Inside Memory
Celebrating Childhood
"Each love is a misery"
Favorite poems:
Secrets
They Say I'm Done For
Song
The Wound
Psalm
Seasons of Tears
The Beginning of Doubt
The Beginning of the Name
The Child Running Inside Memory
Celebrating Childhood
"Each love is a misery"
Read
July 30, 2023If you took Faulkner, Burroughs, and Baudelaire, popped them in in a blender with blades made of social critique of Arab politics and wizzed them into poetry. Then add a healthy dollop of Qur'anic symbolism. The result is as unintelligible and as a gorgeous as that description warrants the imagination.
January 9, 2020
Edit: Isn't it wonderful that I, a monolingual Brit, can have as my favourite poet a dead German (Rilke) and then make comparison with a collection of Syrian poetry? Aren't translators amazing, especially translators of poetry?!
Not fully finished because this needs digesting slowly but such wide ranging poetry. Huge themes of love and loss and faith.
Not fully finished because this needs digesting slowly but such wide ranging poetry. Huge themes of love and loss and faith.
February 7, 2021
I got this as a gift from a friend about 10 years ago. I just finally got around to reading it. I enjoyed it, there's some great lines, some great imagery. A lot of it went over my head due to my ignorance of Arabic poetry but it made me want to read more and that's a great thing. 3 stars.
August 17, 2022
Somente meu súbito interesse por livros de poesia me levariam a conhecer este livro e ter contato com a literatura arábica. Mesmo sendo difícil de entender em alguns momentos foi um bom primeiro exercício.
September 7, 2019
Repetitive concepts and phrases. However, I liked it on average; contained a good number of well-crafted poems
February 19, 2021
A collection that could heal one's soul.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews