If Only the Sea Could Sleep

by Adonis

• ISBN13: 9781931243292
• ISBN10: 1931243298
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-03-01
• Publisher: Green Integer Books

Summary

One of the greatest poets of Arab literature, Adonis's work often centers on the process of poetic creation, but his work has somehow remained highly appealing to Arab readers, and he has had, perhaps, more influence in terms of innovation and modernity than any other contemporary Arab poet. Twice he has been a finalist for the Nobel Prize. For Adonis, poetry is a vision ("ru'ya")a "leap outside of established concepts, a change in the order of things and in the way we look at them." Selected from Al-A'mul al Shi'-riyya, 1 -- 3 (The Complete Works, 3 volumes) the current book explores the great Syrian poet's oeuvre more than any other previous collection in English.

Table of Contents

Contents	5	(4)
Foreword	9	(2)
Introduction	11	(24)
Early Poems	35	(10)
Love	37	(1)
The House of Love	38	(2)
A Mirror for Khalida	40	(5)
The Wave	40	(1)
Beneath the Water	41	(1)
Lost	42	(1)
Fatigue	43	(1)
Death	44	(1)
Beginnings	45	(16)
Qays	47	(1)
Beginning of Space	48	(1)
Beginning of Encounter	49	(1)
Beginning of the Name	50	(1)
Beginning of the Way	51	(1)
Beginning of Travel	52	(1)
Beginning of Love	53	(1)
Beginning of Sex-I	54	(1)
Beginning of Sex-II	55	(2)
Beginning of Words	57	(1)
Beginning of Wind	58	(1)
Beginning to Spell	59	(1)
Beginning of Madness	60	(1)
Long Poems	61	(82)
I Give Myself to the Abyss of Sex	63	(3)
Unintended Worship	66	(17)
I	66	(4)
II	70	(1)
III	71	(2)
IV	73	(1)
V	74	(1)
VI	75	(2)
VII	77	(1)
VIII	78	(2)
IX	80	(1)
X	81	(2)
Transformations of the Lover	83	(30)
I	83	(3)
II	86	(2)
III	88	(5)
IV	93	(9)
V	102	(2)
VI	104	(7)
VII	111	(2)
Voice	113	(7)
Conversation	114	(1)
Conversation	115	(1)
Song	116	(2)
Song	118	(1)
Song	119	(1)
Body	120	(23)
I	120	(2)
II	122	(4)
III	126	(11)
IV	137	(6)
Notes on the Translations	143	(3)
Sources of the Poems	146	(2)
Bibliography	148