Adonis

Adonis (born Ali Ahmad Said Esber) is an award-winning Syrian poet and essayist who led the modernist movement in Arabic poetry in the second half of the twentieth century. His collection, Adonis: Selected Poems, was a finalist for the 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize. A new collection of poems, Concerto for Jerusalem, is forthcoming from Yale University Press.


Articles by Adonis

World Voices Festival
Friday April 11

Concerto for Jerusalem

For so long I’ve begged bread to criticize salt.
Many times, I’ve heard people ask me, whispering,
“Why is death always late in Jerusalem,
while the march of life becomes another death?”

Monday January 9

Selected Poems

Even the wind wants / to become a cart / pulled by butterflies.