Elia Abu Madi (also known as Elia D. Madey; ar, إيليا أبو ماضي '

Lebanese Arabic Lebanese Arabic ( ar, عَرَبِيّ لُبْنَانِيّ ; autonym: ), or simply Lebanese ( ar, لُبْنَانِيّ ; autonym: ), is a variety of North Levantine Arabic, indigenous to and spoken primarily in Lebanon, with significant ...

Transliteration: , .) (May 15, 1890 – November 23, 1957) was a Lebanese-born American poet.

Early life

Abu Madi was born in the village of Al-Muhaydithah, now part of

Bikfaya Bikfaya ( ar, بكفيا, also spelled Bickfaya, Beckfayya, or Bekfaya) is a town in the Matn District region of Mount Lebanon. Its stone houses with red-tiled roofs resting amidst pine and oak forests make Bikfaya one of the most sought-after su ...

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus lie ...

, on May 15, 1890 to a

Greek Orthodox Christian The term Greek Orthodox Church (Greek: Ἑλληνορθόδοξη Ἐκκλησία, ''Ellinorthódoxi Ekklisía'', ) has two meanings. The broader meaning designates "the entire body of Orthodox (Chalcedonian) Christianity, sometimes also call ...

family. At the age of 11 he moved to

Alexandria, Egypt Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...

where he worked with his uncle.

Career and Works

In 1911, Elia Abu Madi published his first collection of poems, ''Tazkar al-Madi''. Shortly after, he was exiled by the Ottoman authorities and he left

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

for the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, where he settled in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...

. In 1916, he moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and began a career in journalism. In New York, Abu Madi met and worked with a number of Arab-American poets including

Gibran Khalil Gibran Gibran Khalil Gibran ( ar, جُبْرَان خَلِيل جُبْرَان, , , or , ; January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931), usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran (pronounced ), was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist ...

. He married the daughter of

Najeeb Diab Najeeb Diab full name Najeeb Moussa Diab ( ar, نجيب موسى دياب; August 6, 1870 – July 11, 1936) was an early Syrian nationalist, founding owner of major Arabic language newspaper, publisher of Khalil Gibran and major force behind deve ...

, editor of the Arabic-language magazine ''

Meraat-ul-Gharb ''Meraat-ul-Gharb'' ( ar, مرآة الغرب, translit=mirʾāt al-ġarb, translation=Mirror of the West) is an Arabic-language newspaper founded and published in New York City by Najeeb Diab in 1899. By 1911, it was considered "the best Arabic n ...

'', and became its chief editor in 1918. His second poetry collection, ''Diwan Iliya Abu Madi'', was published in New York in 1919; his third and most important collection, ''Al-Jadawil'' ("The Streams"), appeared in 1927. His other books were ''Al-Khama'il'' ("The Thickets")(1940) and ''Tibr wa Turab'' (posthumous, 1960). In 1929, Abu Madi founded his own periodical, ''As-Samir'', in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. It began as a monthly but after a few years it was published five times a week. His poems are very well known among Arabs; poet, author, and journalist Gregory Orfalea wrote that "his poetry is as commonplace and memorized in the Arab world as that of

Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American collo ...

is in ours."In ''A Community of Many Worlds: Arab Americans in New York City'', ed. Kathleen Benson, Syracuse University Press, 2002, page 62.

External links

* A photo of Elia Abu Madi as a member of Al-Rabita Al-Qalamiyya (The Pen League).

Notes

Scholarly criticism

# # # Boullata, Issa J. "Iliya Abu Madi and the Riddle of Life in His Poetry" ''Journal of Arabic Literature'', 1986; 17: 69-81. (journal article) #Nijland, Cornelis. "Religious Motifs and Themes in North American Mahjar Poetry" pp. 161–81 IN: Borg, Gert (ed. and introd.); De Moor, Ed (ed.); ''Representations of the Divine in Arabic Poetry''. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi; 2001. 239 pp. (book article) #Romy, Cynthia Johnson. ''Diwan Al-Jadawil of Iliya Abu Madi'' (Masterʻs thesis, University of Arizona). Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10150/291551

References

Sources

Salma Khadra Jayyusi Salma Khadra Jayyusi ( ar, سلمى الخضراء الجيوسي; born 1926 or 1927) is a Palestinian poet, writer, translator and anthologist. She is the founder and director of the Project of Translation from Arabic (PROTA), which aims to provi ...

, ''Trends and Movements in Modern Arabic Poetry'', Brill, 1977. *''Encyclopedia of Islam'', Brill, 1980. *''The New Anthology of American Poetry'', eds. Steven Gould Axelrod, Camille Roman, Thomas J. Travisano, Rutgers University Press, 2005. * *''Poeti arabi a New York. Il circolo di Gibran'', introduzione e traduzione di F. Medici, prefazione di A. Salem, Palomar, Bari 2009. . . {{DEFAULTSORT:Abu Madi, Elia 1890 births Year of birth uncertain 1957 deaths American people of Lebanese descent 20th-century American poets 20th-century Lebanese poets Lebanese writers American poets American writers of Lebanese descent American male journalists Lebanese male poets 20th-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers American Arabic-language poets Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to the United States