The Arab Apocalypse

This is an epic length prose poetry. We read it aloud as a class in a summer workshop. I suggest you study the author's background before diving in. Alot of what is said is generically applicable to all fallout of wars, while some is particular. On the whole, I think reading it in a group with an ongoing discussion made it a lot more accessible than it would have been otherwise.

Beautiful

Elsewhere Etel Adnan has written already two decades ago: T.E. Lawrence was the total embodiment, and consumption by fire, of the English Colonialist actions in the Middle East of his time. By this all of the subsequent actions ("beacon-on-the hill etc.) taken by US representatives Reagan and 2 Bush's could be seen to have ignored the region's truths, so many of the objectives of the Iraq War not having been accomplished. Etel Adnan has spoken on Beirut. She makes Derrida's flight from Algeria to Paris look like an abandonment. Etel Adnan has spoken on Palestine and the Palestinian. Etel Adnan speaks in English in this book, despite its having been published in French originally. Etel's French version is not the searching language of the "French poets." Rather, her English shows more insight for this text, and the Post-Apollo edition is a magnificent demonstration of poetry and publishing for a pittance ($20). Who sells their copy of City Lights "Howl" by Ginsberg? no one. Adnan's "The Arab Apocalypse" is the same. Etel Adnan speaks on the Sun and the Arab (59 verses) in this Arab book, XV: "In the halls of the sun we manufactured virulent religions We burned still-born children HOU! HOU! the solar goddess! The brain is a sun STOP the sun is an eye! "Each nuclear explosion blooms into a sun-brain like a flower ! … "Arabs are dancing in the dust DOUM ! the Tribe is delirious the yellow sun children's toy in the shanty-towns is eating the sea Each bullet is a ball planted in the brain YES ! XVI: "Light comes on horse-back crosses the desert bathes the city there is a paradise inside the yellow sun towards which the refugee is walking "There is a refuge only in death there is no refuge but in fire " Jack Hirschman has said Etel Adnan's ( orig.: L'apocalypse arabe. Paris: Papyrus Editions, 1980) is "a nullified hope refusing its zero." She speaks for all Arabs and all others, she is a voice of navigation in the world without choosing sides. She attempts to give literature the ability to speak truth where there seemingly is none. After "Apocalypse" Etel Adnan wrote (now prophetic) already two decades ago (paraphrased): "[I write]…with the belief that all the things we [have written] are of serious importance, although knowing well with all the current change all things we do or say will be totally obsolete before the century's end..but let us not sink into depression.. we have to distill our anguish and spill it with much care on all kinds of surfaces until the hour of total incapacity."

excellent