Welcome Newsletter

Welcome friends,

I’ve been thinking about the idea of a newsletter for a long time now. I wanted a platform for a collaborative space about something so close to my heart, being an Arab writer and poet. But I hesitated, partly concerned that it would take away from my precious writing time. Then as I started to put it together, I realised that anything which involves writers and poets can only enrich my own writing and life. And if it can do that for me, it must be able to do that for others.

I’d like to offer you a glimpse into a world through the eyes of a mix of people: Arab writers and poets as well as non-Arabs that are all connected through love of the language and richness of the culture.

As we mark the beginning of a new year, we also celebrate Adonis’ birthday. He’s 93 years old today. The eldest of six children, Ali Ahmad Said Esber was born to a family that worked in farming in Syria’s Al Qassabin village. Although they could not afford the cost of formal education, Adonis’s father taught him to read and to memorize poetry. He was finally able to attend school at the age of fourteen, when during the Syrian president’s visit to a neighbouring town, Adonis recited a poem to him and the president granted his request. In his late teens, he began writing under the name Adonis, after the Greek god of beauty and desire.

One newsletter could not cover the depth and importance of Adonis’ ground-breaking work and contributions to the worlds of poetry, culture and philosophy. Throughout his career, he co-founded two literary journals, published numerous collections of poetry and books, won multiple awards and has a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

His writing has broken traditional formal poetic structures and experimented with meter, rhyme and verse. He draws on Arab tradition, mythology, exile and transformation to just name a few of the giant themes that he covers with such intricate observation and curiosity.

At a time when the Arab world has been grappling with how the past conspired to shape its present and its future, understanding our history through the words of a poet like Adonis, can help us understand the depth of the challenges we face. Through his poetry, we can find a way past the noise, bear witness to our struggles, our persistence and understand the beauty of the generations that came before us and the generations that are still to come.

When Adonis examines the human condition, he is essentially guiding us to consider fundamental questions about who we are individually and as a community. His poetry is a living, breathing reminder that we are in constant relationship to ourselves and to the world. What might come of us seeking knowledge through the words of a poet?

This day, celebrated by so many around the world as the start of something new, can be an opportunity to discover or re-discover our purpose through poetry. Are we able to use it to guide us more deeply to our truths so that it is like an anchor for us as we navigate through our lives?

I imagine I am the sound of singing
rolling in waves among the bending reeds
I mix with light in the sun’s chamber
                 In the tents of the trees
I hide
among springs sometimes
and sometimes I descend the slope
of depths I cannot see

I imagine I am the sound of singing from Beginnings of the Body, Ends of the Sea (2003)
Translated by Khaled Mattawa

Happy new year from my family to yours.

I’d love to have you subscribe and to forward it on to anyone you think might be interested in joining me on this journey.