time itself

Hegel said that art was a thing of the past. It pleases me to say: to the contrary, poetry is a question for the future, so much so that the future itself belongs to poetry, is poetry. Without poetry there will be no future. The time that would see poetry die will itself be just another death.

Poetry does not have a time: it is time.

—Adonis, "A language that exiles me," boundary 2, (Vol 26, No.1, Spring 1999) translated by Pierre Joris

mew images

We are all responsible to work for a better society, and there are two ways [to do this]: theoretically and practically. Poetry cannot work in practical ways, but it can give new images to the world and new relationships between words and things. This is its responsibility.

—Adonis (Syrian poet Ali Ahmed Said Esber)

http://www.praguepost.com/tempo/1547-prague-writers-festival-poet-paints-arab-world-laments-fall-of-poetry-in-west.html