Prague Writers' Festival: Poet paints Arab world, laments fall of poetry in West

The Syrian poet Ali Ahmed Said Esber - known to readers as Adonis - traces the fault line between the Arab and Western worlds with his pen, attempting "to give a new image to what we call the Arab world, and to create a new way of seeing our contemporary world," he says.

Born in 1930 in Al Quassabin, Syria, a 17-year-old Adonis recited poems to former Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli, who then agreed to fund his college education. In 1955, Adonis was jailed as a member of the Social Nationalist Party. He later settled in Beirut as a Lebanese citizen. When the Lebanese Civil War flared in 1982, Adonis fled to Paris, where he has remained, becoming a French citizen while teaching Arabic literature at the Sorbonne and representing the Arab League at UNESCO. Throughout his involuntary travels, Adonis has published more than 20 books of poetry and crucial volumes of Arab literary scholarship.

Exile is a key creative force in Adonis' poems, a force that has allowed him to see his homeland from both sides of the border. But he is quick to point out that his situation is not unique.

"Political exile is very superficial; it's only a change of place. The real exile is interior," he said while in town for the Prague Writers' Festival. "A poet who doesn't feel exiled is only part of the superficial world. In this sense, exile is hell because it means anxiety, the perpetual searching for new things. But it's also paradise because it opens new possibilities."

Audience as a concept

Many of his poems - written in Arabic - make reference to Arab culture and politics, but his poetry is not written for any singular audience, Adonis says.

" 'Audience' is a concept that only exists in politics and ideology," he says. "A reader of poetry is always a creator, so poets have creative readers, but no audience."

The multifaceted nature of Adonis' biography is mirrored by his involvement in both poetry and politics. His writing, teaching and involvement with organizations such as UNESCO allow him to fulfill what he calls human responsibilities.

"We are all responsible to work for a better society, and there are two ways [to do this]: theoretically and practically. Poetry cannot work in practical ways, but it can give new images to the world and new relationships between words and things. This is its responsibility," he said.

The relatively limited readership of poetry is a thorn in every poet's side. Adonis is critical of the West's indifference to poetry, and resignedly mourns the ongoing divorce between poetry and society. At the same time, he is less than optimistic about poetry's ability to establish itself in the national consciousness.

"We tried in the Western world. We invented political and ideologically engaged poetry, but this engagement killed both the concepts and the poetry," he said. "There will always be great poets, but we can say that poetry doesn't have a real presence in the West."

Poems and worldview

Whatever the size of poetry's readership, it remains crucial to Adonis' life and worldview. "Poetry is a way of seeing the world, so human beings are by definition poets. The poet's vision is the same as everyone's. It's not a difference of nature, but of practice."

After more than 60 years of writing and studying poetry, Adonis recently began work on his autobiography, which will trace life in Syria, Lebanon, France and elsewhere. Asked if he thought his life story could be instructive or representative, he said his primary goal was to record his past before it disappears.

"I've started to forget things, so the first part of the book - my childhood - is very difficult. I have to visit my oldest friends to find some memories," he said.

No matter how diverse and numerous Adonis' projects, poetry remains central as a way of communing with the past and present.

"Poets are all living in the same forest: Homer, Dante, Hölderlin and Celan, each a different world, but all living together, where contradictions dissolve. This is the secret of poetry," he said.

(Original article by Stephan Delbos, The Prague Post online)