Premonition

by Etel Adnan

Literary Nonfiction. Poetry. Women's Studies. Middle Eastern Studies. Etel Adnan is a Lebanese-American poet, visual artist, and essayist. Her rich body of work documents an unblinking witness to beauty in nature, human beings and art; to cruelty, especially as enacted in the mindless violence of war; and to the power of love and human perseverance. In PREMONITION the voice is wise and paradoxical, opening with the observation, "There's always a conductive thread through space for untenable positions." Sentences are set apart in aphoristic cuts never wholly separate from this "conductive thread," and always shaped by the gem-like compressions of poetry. PREMONITION is a short book that refuses finality in a world of contingencies and human unpredictability. The only sure place to stand, in this late work of Etel Adnan's, must be created from day to day in life and art.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Hardcover

First published March 5, 2014

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

[juch]

for real got chills. vast and elemental but still intimate. whatever grand sweeping proclamations there were landed softly. feels like someone telling you about their dream. i usually struggle w long poems but felt swept by this the whole time, it probably helped that it was in a widely spaced cute little book

[Norton Reyes-Vargas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Estaba en el Guggenheim y necesitaba cargar mi celular, entré a la sala de lectura donde hay una serie de poemarios para hacer una actividad, y me topé con este libro.

Quizás esta sea una experiencia de una sola vez, pero este libro me hizo sentir un vacío en el cuerpo muy extraño, es muy bello pero se siente triste, es extraño.

Siento ganas de llorar pero no las suficientes como para llorar. Quizás porque estoy en un lugar público y no quiero que nadie me vea. ¿puede ser ?

[nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a gift it is to pick up this, start anywhere along the pages, and be convinced that the world is much larger than we already think it is? What wonder to swing through lyrical lines to make personal investigations into our own life and psyche to redirect us to where we want to be for ourselves. For anyone who feels stuck or is going through any kind of artistic block, I highly recommend this as aid to such impossible feelings. This helps break everything down.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let us not fear contradictions, they will outlast us.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

such lyrical brilliance

[maeve sheridan · Rating 5 out of 5]

a short book of beautiful prose poetry, fueled by an absolute urgency that i fell in love with. read this while sitting in a reading room at the guggenheim. talk about pretentious!

[Mills College Library]

811.54 A2389p 2014