There: In the Light and the Darkness of the Self and of the Other

by Etel Adnan

Poetry. "THERE is a poem of hidden seams, fissures that we cross unsuspecting. A smooth surface conceals a universe of sudden shifts and transitions from one level to another—a philosophical level which pursues the mysteries of consciousness and place, a second level which asks the same questions ('do I have to have a nationality in order to be human?') in a committed social and political vision, a passionate and engaged post-modernism."—Michael Beard, Univ. of North Dakota

Genres: Poetry

70 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1997

About the author

Etel Adnan was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1925. She studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, U.C. Berkeley, and at Harvard, and taught at Dominican College in San Rafael, California, from 1958–1972.

In solidarity with the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962), Adnan began to resist the political implications of writing in French and became a painter. Then, through her participation in the movement against the Vietnam War (1959–1975), she began to write poetry and became, in her words, “an American poet.” In 1972, she returned to Beirut and worked as cultural editor for two daily newspapers—first for Al Safa, then for L’Orient le Jour. Her novel Sitt Marie-Rose, published in Paris in 1977, won the France-Pays Arabes award and has been translated into more than ten languages.

In 1977, Adnan re-established herself in California, making Sausalito her home, with frequent stays in Paris. Adnan is the author of more than a dozen books in English, including Journey to Mount Tamalpais (1986), The Arab Apocalypse (1989), In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country (2005), and Sea and Fog (2012), winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry and the California Book Award for Poetry. Her most recent books are Night (2016) and Surge (2018). In 2014, she was awarded one of France’s highest cultural honors: l’Ordre de Chevalier des Arts et Lettres. Numerous museums have presented solo exhibitions of Adnan’s work, including SFMoMA; Zentrum Paul Klee; Institute du Monde Arabe, Paris; Serpentine Galleries; and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Qatar.

Reviews

[jessica]

what is here?: a place or an idea, a circle focused in god's eye, a cosmic wave's frozen frame, transient, doomed?

here, where the heat mollifies, when the body surrenders before solicitations could reach it, and there, where the temperature boils the mind and makes it explode into sudden action; here is the point of no return...

in hebrew, both כאן and פה translate to here. while כאן is more about location, פה is more about presence. as an interlude to there as an elegiac parable, adnan's poem above, titled here, recalls this distinction and elucidates the relationships between here and there throughout the volume. during a time of political unrest, there is where bodies, landscapes, and built worlds die, and here is where memory, love, and grief live. fundamentally human, this must be memory of, love for, and grief with, simultaneously about somewhere and someone in a reality that is at once real and distanced, and that is there for anyone experiencing these presences and absences, here and now.

[Engi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like how every poem has the same name.

"I know of days when people disappear, suddenly, the crated of fruit, and those who stay behind never move away from their windows"

"In this my place time is shut off, death could be a beginning, a revolution's starting point: in the stillness surrounded by the trees, then the mountains, and beyond, the left-overs of History..."

"You can, if you desire, sweep your floor with my family's parchments, but beware, the wind is rising, the air becoming metal. I live in a luminosity which renews its vigor"

"Not too far from my house I used to play with the waves - where are they now? I was a child, then, the place is far away. They speak to me of other world, I care for this one, consisting of the chair I'm sitting on and the pain that tightens my heart, and the light falling right now outside the window. Where are your scissors, the ones, sharp and blue, used on your mother's dress?"

[Ryan Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. Adnan masterfully explores identity, war, space, and time in this collection. Perhaps most striking is her ability to shape powerful questions from any range of seemingly unrelated topics.

This collection of poems is incredibly loose with its imagery and cohesion which makes it a bit difficult to keep up with. I think if I were to read it again it might be 5 stars but the first pass through was slow going.

[لبنى · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5

[Maria Dora · Rating 5 out of 5]

A slim yet seismic work that dissolves the boundaries between revolution, philosophy, and the cosmos.

This book vibrates in the space between your ribs long after the last page.

Adnan doesn’t just write about transcendence, she induces it.