The Pages of Day and NightCalling poetry a "question that begets another question," Adonis sets into motion this stream of unending inquiry with difficult questions about exile, identity, language, politics, and religion. Repeatedly mentioned as a possible Nobel laureate, Adonis is a leading figure in twentieth-century Arabic poetry. Restless and relentless, Adonis explores the pain and otherness of exile, a state so complete that absence replaces identity and becomes the exile's only presence. Exile can take many forms for the Arabic poet, who must practice his craft as an outsider, separated not only from the nation of his birth but from his own language; in the present as in the past, that exile can mean censorship, banishment, or death. Through these poems, Adonis gives an exquisite voice to the silence of absence. |
Contents
The Sleep of Hands | 3 |
The Call | 9 |
A Mirror for My Body in Love | 16 |
A King Mihyar | 22 |
1 | 30 |
4 | 39 |
10 | 73 |
11 | 92 |
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Common terms and phrases
ABU NUWAS Adonis Arab poet Arab poetry Arab society Arabic language ashes Baghdad banishment beginning beneath bird blood body branches bread breasts breath burned clock announces clouds corpse create Damascus darkness dead death desert door dream dust earth ELEGY Euphrates everything exile eyelids eyes face fire flee flesh flowers frog GILGAMESH hand Hanoi Harlem hear heart heaven horizon hunger identity Islam language leave Let our turn light live lost love's lovers memory Mihyar moon mountain never Niffari Night happens numbered PAGES OF DAY pharaohs phoenix pillow planted poetic POLLEN pre-Islamic prophecy Qur'anic remember Revelation rise road SAMUEL HAZO sand say goodbye shadow shore silence sleep snow someone to remember song sorrows spring stars stones streets tears thunder transformed trees voice wait wall Walt Whitman wave whispers Whitman wind wings woman words wounds writing wrote a poem York