news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

The Beginning of Poetry

[Syria] Adonis

Translated by Xue Qingguo

Your most beautiful thing is to shake the world

Others, some think you are just an echo

Some people think you can call the shots

Your most beautiful thing is to become an argument

Cited by light and darkness

So, your last words are your first words

Others, some think you are just a bubble

Some people think you are the founder of a school of thought.

The most beautiful thing about you is to become a target

Become a watershed

Distinguishing between silence and speech

The Beginning of Poetry

Adonis

The best thing one can be is a horizon.

And the others?

Some will think you are the call

others will think you are its echo.

The best thing one can be is an alibi

for light and darkness

where the last words are your first.

And the others?

Some will see you as the foam of creation

others will think you the creator.

The best thing one can be is a target—

crossroad

between silence and words.

Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa

A guide on a meaningful jungle trip

[Syria] Adonis

Translated by Xue Qingguo

What is poetry?

Long voyage ship

There is no dock.

What is fantasy?

The aroma of reality.

What is a face?

Migration of tears

The nearest port on the way.

What is daylight?

The biggest cage that imprisons sunlight.

What is poverty?

A moving grave across the land.

What is a Rose?

A head that grows to be decapitated.

What is dust?

A sigh from the lungs of the earth.

What is Rain?

The last passenger getting off the train of dark clouds.

What is anxiety?

Folds and wrinkles, in the silk of nerves.

What is time?

We put on clothes that we can never take off.

Travel Guide to the Forest of Meaning

Adonis

What is poetry?

Vessel headed for no port.

What is imagination?

The scent of reality.

What is the face?

Port for the migration of tears.

What is day?

A cage to trap sunlight.

What is poverty?

A grave moving above ground.

What is rose?

A head which grows in order to be cut off.

What is dust?

A sigh which comes from the lung of the earth.

What is rain?

The last passenger to come off the train of cloud.

What is anxiety?

Creases and wrinkles on the silk of the nerves.

What is time?

Clothes which once put on we cannot take off.

Translated from Arabic by Zhang Jian

Translator Profile: Xue Qingguo, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of the School of Arabic Studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University, Secretary General of the Chinese Society of Arabic Literature, and Academic Advisor of the Hong Kong Poetry Festival Foundation. He is mainly engaged in the research and translation of modern Arabic literature and culture. He has written five books including "The Great Garden of Arabic Literature", and more than ten translated works including "My Loneliness is a Garden", "Writing in the Horizon of Meaning", "The Lover from Palestine", and "The Complete Works of Gibran". He has won the "Sheikh Hamad Translation and International Understanding Award" of Qatar.