Goethe Prize Goes to Syrian Poet, a First for the German Honor
Joining the ranks of Herman Hesse and Sigmund Freud, Syrian-born poet Adonis is the first Arabic-speaking writer to win the triennial Goethe Prize for literature. The eighty-one-year-old poet, whose Selected Poems in a translation by Khaled Mattawa (Yale University Press, 2010) recently won the 2011 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, received fifty thousand euros at a ceremony last Sunday, Goethe's birthday. (The prize is worth approximately $71,365.)
Goethe himself introduced aspects of Arabic literature to European readers—inspired by the Persian poet Hafiz, Goethe published the poetry collection West-östlicher Divan (West-Eastern Divan) in 1819. In a reversal, according to the prize judges, "Adonis has carried the accomplishments of European modernity into Arabic cultural circles, with great effect."
"I wanted to draw on Arab tradition and mythology without being tied to it," said Adonis of his process in an interview with the New York Times (via the Guardian). "I wanted to break the linearity of poetic text—to mess with it, if you will. The poem is meant to be a network rather than a single rope of thought."
Adonis, who adopted his pen name at the age of nineteen (he was born Ali Ahmad Said Esber), is the author of more than twenty books of poetry including Mihyar of Damascus (BOA Editions, 2008), A Time Between Ashes and Roses (Syracuse University Press, 2004), and If Only the Sea Could Sleep (Green Integer, 2002).
It’s only fair to admit that I’ve read at Bar 13 once before. Three, maybe four, years had passed since the last time I’d read there. The crowd seemed more aware of the little things that make a poet crave the mic. Patrick Rosal, author of the forthcoming Boneshepherds, was in the audience rubbing shoulders with young poets as they all enjoyed the moment with something cold to drink.
I sat at the bar for near an hour waiting for my turn, listening to the crowd scream out lines of their favorite poems. I get a little nervous reading after six or seven poets have read and the audience has already been read to for an hour or so. 
I still remember Raina’s final poem about her brother. Haunting, the poem has left a lasting impression. Many of her poems do this, give me pause. And January, January read the best sex poem I’ve heard in years! A poem so filled with yearning and the unexpected that I thought the audience would soon depart to find love in the rain. The audience stayed, and allowed me to read a poem or two.
