Adonis is not a poet: he is not one poet amongst others, but the poet, the only one. His poems have changed what poetry could be in the Arabic language, and in any language. A master at the humblest, most serene and metaphysical poetry, he has  equally invented new ways of practicing these archaic, ambitious forms: the epic, didactic poetry. A heroic figure in a time that does not favor them, he still is, at nearly ninety, the boldest young man one could meet, who has long championed a more free, more active, more humane way of being human.

His life as a poet makes him more than a writer: he is a voice. When Adonis speaks, the rest of the world stays silent to hear his word, to feel, and to think. And more than a voice, he is a man of his craft, an artist, a maker – the Greek word poietes signifies  nothing but that. He has worked on every word of his language, and he has looked at every piece of stone, every flower, every line on a face that has ever made the world.