Adonis Selected Poems

The first major career-spanning collection of the poems of Adonis, widely acknowledged as the most important poet working in Arabic today   “Poetry for [Adonis] is not merely a genre or an art form but a way of thinking, something almost like mystical revelation.”—Charles McGrath, New York Times   Born in Syria in 1930, Adonis is one of the most celebrated poets of the Arabic-speaking world. His poems have earned international acclaim, and his influence on Arabic literature has been likened to that of T. S. Eliot’s on English-language verse. This volume serves as the first comprehensive survey of Adonis’s work, allowing English readers to admire the arc of a remarkable literary career through the labors of the poet’s own handpicked translator, Khaled Mattawa.   Daring in form and prophetic in tone, Adonis’s poetry sings of both the sweet promise of eros and the problems of the self. He writes of childhood (“Your childhood is a village. / You will never cross its boundaries / no matter