Poetry after Adonis

A pioneer of the prose poem, he has played a role in Arab modernism comparable to T. S. Eliot’s in English-language poetry. The literary and cultural critic Edward Said calls him „today’s most daring and provocative Arab poet.“ The poet Samuel Hazo, who translated Adonis’s collection „The Pages of Day and Night,“ said, „There is Arabic poetry before Adonis, and there is Arabic poetry after Adonis.“ Experimental in style and prophetic in tone, Adonis’s poetry combines the formal innovations of modernism with the mystical imagery of classical Arabic poetry. / Adam Shatz, NYT 13.7.02