He lost the thread of things. His inner star went out. * What separates me from you is a distance vast as a mirage. 摆鈥 there is nothing that brings us together, whereas everything that is separates us-so let me burn alone. * Nonetheless I still await you. In the shells of night along the seashore in the roar coming from the sea鈥檚 depths in the holes that fill the sky鈥檚 gown in jujube and acacia, in pine and cedar, in the lining of the waves-in their very salt I wait for you. * I search for something to extend the rippling limits, limits that cannot be seen between the sea and the rocks, between the clouds and the sand, between the day and night.
I don鈥檛 understand poetry and the cultural allusions in this Syrian classic were unfamiliar to me. Yet I loved the feel of the language, the atmosphere these poems created, the mysticism.
adonis, semakin menegaskan bahwa puncak pencarian adalah 'kebingungan'. kebingungan berdiri bukan sebagai kata benda atau sifat. melainkan kata kerja yang penuh intrik, siasat, sekaligus khianat.
kita mati jika tidak kita ciptakan Tuhan. kita mati jika tidak kita bunuh Tuhan.
O, kerajaan batu cadas, kebingungan.
sebenarnya apa yang ingin dibela oleh adonis anyway? ini yang menarik kita cermati. tuhan dalam perspektif adonis juga merupakan belenggu. hijab bagi sebuah perjalanan. tuhan dan setan berfungsi sama. jika kaum sufi beranggapan bahwa tuhan adalah tujuan, adonis berdiri satu tingkat atas pemahaman itu.
kita adalah generasi percakapan panjang antara puing-puing dan tuhan.
wow. apakah adonis adalah sosok yang melebihi maqom makrifat? beberapa puisi di buku ini ditujukan ke beberapa tokoh sufi. salah satunya al hallaj. martir pertama dalam dunia tasawuf. adonis sangat menghormati al hallaj seperti dalam puisi ini:
kaulah bintang dari baghdad kaulah sejarah kami kaulah kebangkitan kami tak lama lagi di bumi kami - di kematian kami kembali
ada apa setelah kita mengetahui apa yang tidak kita ketahui? selain tentu saja, kebingungan.
bersama hembus angin o, orang-orang yang kebingungan sajak ini kutulis untuk kalian.
saya kira, membaca adonis adalah menemukan apa yang kita sebut dengan post-religiositas. pemahaman terakhir setelah tuhan menjadi puing dan serak. tidak atheis. tapi sebuah penantian.
hilang menyatukan kita dengan yang bukan diri kita hilang menyematkan wajah lautan dalam mimpi kita hilang adalah sebuah penantian.
akhirnya, seperti kata GM dalam pengantar buku ini, memang kita layak berbahagia, bahwa adonis telah menulis dan bicara. saya kira, buku ini layak Anda baca. terutama kamu. sungguh.
This is a truly beautiful book. Adonis stuns with surrealist imagery while weaving a timeless tale. This version translated into English and should appeal to many, those with eyes on history, surrealism, the Middle East, and ancient religious power. Adonis is arguably the greatest Middle Eastern poet of the 20th century. I only wish that all of his works were translated into English. The translators have done a beautiful job because these poems are breathstopping in English. (The name Adonis came when he could not get recognition from his Arabic pen name鈥�) I am reading for a second time.
Without a proper understanding of all the references, this was a more difficult collection of poetry for me than even some of the most well-known challenging works. But that is not the author's fault - it was clearly written for an audience more versed in that myth and culture. I flipped back and forth between the poems and the notes at the end of the book which showed how brilliantly he weaved certain themes and myths into short lines and words, I just wish I could have been more familiar with them so I didn't have to interrupt my reading to understand.
Even without this higher level of understanding, I still found much to be gained from this collection. It is written by a famed Syrian poet whose purpose in Songs seems to be to track the world through its real and mythological history in order to display the inevitability of the destruction of his city. He creates the world in a form of Genesis and takes his character, Mihyar, through the different moments in time from Odysseus' adventure, through non-Western myths, through scenes of war and famine. It really is a beautiful collection, and even if you aren't able to glean the deeper meanings of the poems, it is worth reading for the incredible language alone.
3.75 stars Following Mihyar, a god like individual, walking through the world and seeing it through the eyes of surrealism, mysticism and melancholy, was as if I鈥檇 been transported to this emotional journey led by some sort of prophet recounting his history, pain and emotion. Adonis introduces every part of this book with a psalm, each one depicting the overall direction the said part will examine. It鈥檚 so beautifully written, almost heart wrenching yet exhilarating! The way religion, Greek mythology and time are woven through every sentence, wars waging and countries demolished and reaped, you can feel every metaphor sting your insides and flesh. How every sentence holds so much imagery and life, almost giving the reader the chance to familiarize and relate it to any aspect of one鈥檚 life, giving birth to poetry made from heritage and history, love of one鈥檚 land and country, making a home in your heart at the end. Eloquent and mesmerizing, this book takes you on a an emotional journey.
This moved me more than I expected; I bought this book on a whim and I am so glad I did. The intricate weaving of Islamic theology and Greek mythology, the parallels between myth and present days refugees and war, and the way Adonis pulls you through the dessolute pain of existence and play your emotions like a fiddle... I wish I had more of a grasp on Middle Eastern references, though, because sometimes I did feel the gap of my understanding and his symbolic language.
E鈥� una poesia ardua, quella di Adonis, tesa come 猫 verso la ricerca di nuovi spazi espressivi e l鈥檈splorazione di dimensioni ineffabili. Mihyar il Damasceno 猫 simbolo di questa realt脿 ricerca: vive sospeso, nel mezzo di una esistenza in continuo divenire - 猫 legato alla materia del mondo naturale, ma respira in dimensioni ultraterrene, non 猫 idolo superumano, ma neppure primordiale entit脿 divina. 脠 nostro gemello 猫 immensa entit脿 che tutto comprende.... Questi versi vivono di paradossi ed incertezze, evocativi ed epici, ma lasciano spesso i lettori confusi e perplessi. Si sentono echi di un panteismo quasi spinoziano, risuonano atmosfere prerazionali, prereligiose, impossibili da cogliere cerebralmente, ma solo soggette ad intuizioni o sogni. Tutto vibra in una tensione continua tra materia e spirito, tra divinit脿 anelate ed uccise, tra annullamento in un Nirvana e vitalismo materico ed individuale.
Solo nelle ultime pagine emerge la persona del poeta e lo strazio umano dell鈥檈silio e dell鈥檃bbandono forzato della propria patria martoriata porta la poesia ad un livello pi霉 鈥渦mano鈥� - in ogni caso, versi potenti ed inafferrabili che evocano e confondono, modernissimi e radicati nella poesia araba pi霉 classica. Raccomando la lettura della postfazione di Khalida Said per avere qualche illuminazione in pi霉 sul lavoro di Adonis.
For whom does dawn open the window of my eyes And dig its paths along my ribs? Why does death displace my essence And bind my life to the beat of time? I knew it. My blood is a womb for time, My lips give birth to truth.
____________
What a beautiful poetry collection! It鈥檚 the first book I鈥檝e read from Syrian Literature, also Syrian Poetry and I fell in love! What a beautiful experience! I annotated many poems and read again and again鈥�
If you love reading poems from different cultures you definitely give a chance to this book!
This is a very important collection in the history of Arabic poetry, and the translation is very well done. As a collection, there's a lot of depth created through the repetition of images and lines, which leads to a unified whole. A really beautiful collection of poems that should be on every poetry fan's shelf.
My understanding is that the poems were highly dependent on context. I read about them in advance and tried to get as much context as possible and be prepared, and still I could not connect to them much.
vakkert, og klart til tross for at diktene best氓r av metafor p氓 metafor, metaforer som kan v忙re vanskelige 氓 visualisere og som kanskje m氓 registreres assosiativt/intuivt, lydlig, eller i henhold til diktets system. energisk p氓 en m氓te som f酶les ustyrlig. rytmen (i den norske oversettelsen) fungerer kjempegodt
He doesn鈥檛 speak this language. He doesn鈥檛 know the voices of the wastes鈥� a soothsayer in stony sleep, he is burdened with distant languages.
Here he comes from under the ruins in the climate of new words,
offering his poems to grieving winds unpolished but bewitching like brass.
He is a language glistening between the masts, the knight of strange words.
Mask of Songs
In the name of his own history, in a country mired in mud, when hunger overtakes him he eats his own forehead. He dies. The seasons never find out how. He dies behind the interminable mask of songs.
The only loyal seed, he dwells alone buried deep in life itself.
The Earth
How often you have said to me "I have another country," your palms filling with tears and your eyes filling with lightning from where the borders keep edging closer.
Did your eyes know that the earth, whenever it cried or cheered your footsteps, here where you have sung, or there, that it knows every passerby but you and knows itself to be one, dried up breasts, dry inside, and that it doesn't know the ritual of rejection?
Did your eyes realize that you yourself are the earth?
by Adonis ** read in Saudi Arabia (Feb-Mar 2021)
Adonis (pen-name of Ali Ahmad Said, b. 1930) is perhaps the most widely respected and influential modern Arab poet. Founder and editor of two important journals in Lebanon, Shi鈥檙 (Poetry) and Muw芒qif (Positions), and author of numerous major works of criticism, he has been a shaping force on Arab modernism for decades. The poems above are from Agh芒n卯 Mihy芒r al-Dimashq卯 (Mihyar of Damascus, his Songs), a 1961 collection which famously reshaped the possibilities of Arabic lyric poetry.
Born in Syria in 1930, Adonis later moved to Lebanon and became a pivotal figure in the new poetry of the late 1960s. With the publication of "Mihyar of Damascus: His Songs" in 1963--widely viewed as a watershed moment in Arabic poetry--Adonis forged a new set of possibilities for Arabic poetry, writing in traditional meters but infusing them with modernist rhythms, styles, and conceptual complexities.
"Mihyar on kuningas, kuningas joka uneksii palatseista ja liekkipuutarhoista -- Mihyar on kuningas, H盲n asuu tuulen valtakunnassa Ja hallitsee arvoitusten maata"
T盲t盲 runokokoelmaa on kyll盲 aidosti aika vaikea arvioida. Lukukokemuksena se toi vahvasti mieleen Odysse谩s El媒tiksen Axion Esti -kokoelman: modernistista runoutta kulttuuripiirist盲 johon ei itse oikein p盲盲se sis盲lle.
Adoniksen runoutta pidet盲盲n arabimaailmassa "vallankumouksellisena" ja h盲nt盲 verrataan usein T.S. Eliotiin. Vallankumouksellisuudesta on tavallaan helppo saada kiinni Songs of Mihyar the Damascenen kohdalla. Runot huokuvat kapinallista individualismia, mystiikkaa ja antitraditionalismia. Teoksen kertoja Mihyar, Levantin moderni Zarathustra, kulkee l盲pi Damaskuksen, Beirutin ja Baghdadin salamoiden olemassaoloa.
Runot ovat mahtipontisia ja niiss盲 toistuvat tietyt elementit: salamat, silm盲luomet, hiekka, jumalat, paholaiset, kyyneleet. Osittain samoja viboja kuin Koraanin ilmaisussa, toisaalta taas jotenkin blakelaisia kaikuja. Omaan korvaan osa mahtipontisuudesta kalskahti jopa hieman ontolta. Mutta p盲盲asiassa aika eeppiselt盲.
Pit盲isi ehk盲 lukea t盲m盲 uudelleen jotta p盲盲sisi v盲h盲n runojen sis盲盲n. Mutta ainakin t盲m盲 on kirjallisuushistoriallisesti todella kiinnostava.
"Sulatan teid盲t, lauluni pilviksi, elegioiksi, sateeksi, sekoitan armon ja rikoksen kutoen tappion keih盲ill盲 sotalipun liasta ja aamusta
Lumous, tuli ja tanssiaiset, ovat valtakuntani, sumu on armeijani ja maailma on tappio"
I bought this book, rather randomly, without knowing the poet. Some of my best 'books' I have discovered in this manner, just browsing through bookshelves in a shop, and letting my hands pick a book, open it, read a few lines and decide if that will be my next 'discovery'.
On the cover it said: "the greatest living poet of the Arabic world" according to Guardian; it resonated with me and I bought the book.
Reading the first poem gave me a rush of goos bumps, and I recalled, how much I have missed poetry.
For now, I am taking this beautiful book with me on the summer travels and will indulge in the pleasure of reading and bringing to life the verses.