Surge

by Etel Adnan

A new volume of aphoristic prose and philosophical poetry from Etel Adnan, whose work The New York Times recently described as the "meditative heir to Nietzsche's aphorisms, Rilke's Book of Hours and the verses of Sufi mysticism." She writes: "Reality is messianic/apocalyptic/ my soul is my terror."

Genres: Poetry

56 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2018

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

[Edita · Rating 5 out of 5]

And from the tides, what’s left? The fact that we’re rhythms and to each his own, that they don’t merge with anything alien, that they can’t be trespassed, and so on. 
*
It’s given, then taken away.
*
We’re led to think that poetry is the space where an object and its other territory, or the real and reality, meet, in clearest evidence, for the real to move into reality, and reality be the real.

[Sarah]

There are some great lines here on reality, water, the real. But this reminded me that I have trouble reading poetry, and also made me feel like I was in a classroom with a certain energetic professor who would say very profound and convoluted things, where only the shape of the idea but never the intricacies sink in.

[Rags · Rating 5 out of 5]

there is something blissful in a book that keeps on giving and this had no form. no structure. it was like a waterfall of idea that wraps itself like a tender blanket in your stream of conciousness. i won't ever re-read this because this book made me write along with it.

etel came and sat with me near the fireplace of our souls igniting and striking exchange of tender conversations where one's pen already wrote one the others was in motion along with it.

i think i wrote two (poems) something around it or what my mind was yeilding in the instant.
i however challenged the final few stanzas in the book with my nihlistic optimism and i think i did that with alot of elements in it, while reading. i think i did so because i am still in the process of navigating a rough patch in my life now.

i like that i am in my own color and not dyed in any. i am happy my thoughts are my own invention, though the tools can be borrowed.

and therefore regardless of the effort, it was a beautiful experience.
and maybe - that's how reading should be (?)

thank you for telling me about a she in it. thank you for talking about so many celestial and terrestrail things and carefully placing love and being in between. but thank you for plotting your soul through language. thank you adnan <3

[Ygraine · Rating 3 out of 5]

"the principle of reality filters the real
which faints into it
the operation is epiphanic:
the surging, into an instant, of an instant

reality is messianicapocalytic
my soul is my terror"

[Lars Meijer · Rating 3 out of 5]

'When I recall, let's say, my mother, am I having a new look at her, or do I see repeatedly a fixed image of her, forever the same?'

[Rebecca Valley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about reality and apocalypse and oceans and winter. I love Etel Adnan. She insists on making me think.

[hjh · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The heat and the cold fill many gaps, but is reality real? For now, the November sky is watery, California skies over artichoke fields, redwoods, trucks going south in the night" (3)

"Comprehensibility has nothing to do with the real" (4)

"Your identity is your prison" (14)

"The real requires patience. "The love that moves the sun and other stars" never wears a mask" It's available. It's generous, too. And let's be resilient as it is" (23)

"The universe may end as sheer light... the light might not end" (24)

"Between the will and its destination, there might be fields and fields. But the will can bend and not recede. I still prefer love's power, though it keeps us dangling between obscurity and daylight" (30)

"Imagination alleviates terror, creating both the windows and what we see. It gives power to the mind-- if by mind we name the fusion of will, intellect and imagination" (32)

"Images don't come from the imagination. They grow like weeds from the fields of the invisible" (33)

"Color is a particular manifestation of light/ everything else is doubtful" (44)

"We live in imaginary countries" (44)

"Transparency emerges when the time has/ come to revive by any available window/ a shred of reality" (45)

"Reality is messianic apocalyptic
my soul is my terror" (48)

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Etel Adnan is an inspiration to me, and I love her work. Her writing here, although beautiful and poignant, is philosophically dense, and is often rather convoluted. I often found myself having to re-read portions of it multiple times to really allow it to seep through - and yet, I still don't know if I've been left with any lasting impression.

That being said, that isn't necessarily a "bad" thing. I've been having a hard time concentrating recently, and my mind has been especially fuzzy as of late, so I think my review of this book is muddied by my current state. I approached this book rather hardened, and I think it demands a softer embrace.

I am going to come back to this, most definitely during my MFA, and I have a feeling it will sink in all the more when I am in a position to fully appreciate (what I am certain is) Adnan's genius.

Her work is ready for my touch; I just need to work on my tenderness.

[Prox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly existential and very insightful. Only dislike is the format and inexplicable name-dropping of some friends that didn't really add to the substantiality of the piece overall. I really appreciated the consistent reiterations of different concepts in a way that abstracts them beyond what you could expect. This was definitely very warm and inspired yearning in a way that instigates curiosity for the familiar. It was like being reminded to savor life's simple pleasures.

[Leslie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don't ask me what this book is about? Here and there was a line that intrigued me but mostly nonsensical (to me) ramblings with lots of name dropping of artists? philosophers? friends? that I was unfamiliar with.

[K.B. Thors]

I reviewed this for Lambda Literary:
https://www.lambdaliterary.org/2019/0...

[Jack Malik · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful book to find banger lines; not necessarily banger works.

[Riley Ely · Rating 4 out of 5]

yum

[Dina H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

« The real requires patience. “The love that moves the sun and other stars” never wears a mask: It’s available. It’s generous, too. And let’s be as resilient as it is. » 🥹❤️

[Tarredion · Rating 3 out of 5]

”Poets remain the keeper of language, for whatever it’s worth”

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful and thought-provoking poetry! Adnan is a fascinating writer with thorough philosophical knowledge. I sincerely hope I will be as aware and curious when I am past 90!

[Stevie Ada · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The real requires patience. 'The love that moves the
sun and other stars' never wears a mask: It's available.
It's generous, too. And let's be as resilient as it is."

-Etel Adnan, "Surge" pg. 23

When reading Etel Adnan, I am always taken with the ways she moves from the interior experience to the outer lived experience with such grace. One overriding theme within "Surge" is the pulse of water in its many forms. This book of poetry reads as a stream of consciousness, but as if Adnan observed her own consciousness before allowing the words to go onto paper.

Patient perceptions and collected notes that become poems. A steadily lived and observed life that allows for us to feel as if we too can take pause and move direction despite the pressures that may move us in directions we did not expect.

[kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Flowers are obsolete as people. If you had to choose between the Mississippi and your neighbor wouldn't you rather vote for the grand river's survival? I would."

"Images don't come from the imagination. They grow like weeds from the fields of the invisible."

[ice_butch .jpg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Etel makes u feel like ur in a classroom but not in an unpleasant way.