Elia Abu Madi

Infobox Writer
name = Elia Abu Madi


imagesize =
caption =
pseudonym =
birthname = Īlīyā Abū Māḍī
birthdate = c.1890
birthplace = Ottoman Syria
deathdate = 1957|11|23
deathplace =
occupation = poet, journalist, publisher
nationality =
period =
genre = poetry
subject =
movement = Mahjar, New York Pen League
notableworks =
spouse =
partner =
children =
relatives =
influences =
influenced =
awards =


website =

Elia Abu Madi (also known as Elia D. Madey; ArB|إيليا أبو ماضي —ArTranslit|Īlīyā Abū Māḍī) (b. 1889 or 1890—d. 23 November 1957) was a Lebanese-American poet.

Life and career

Abu Madi was born in the village of Al-Muhaydithah, now part of Bikfaya, Lebanon, in 1889 or 1890. At the age of 11 he moved to Alexandria, Egypt where he worked with his uncle, a small businessman.

In 1911, Elia Abu Madi published his first collection of poems, "Tadhkar al-Madi". That same year he left Egypt for the United States, where he settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1916 he moved to New York and began a career in journalism. In New York Abu Madi met and worked with a number of Arab-American poets including Kahlil Gibran. He married the daughter of Najib Diyab, editor of the Arabic-language magazine "Mirat al-Gharb", and became the chief editor of that publication 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" (1940) and "Tibr wa Turab" (posthumous, 1960).

In 1929 Abu Madi founded his own periodical, "Al-Samir", in Brooklyn. It began as a monthly but after a few years appeared five times a week.

His poems are very well known among Arabs; journalist Gregory Orfalea wrote that "his poetry is as commonplace and memorized in the Arab world as that of Robert Frost is in ours." [In "A Community of Many Worlds: Arab Americans in New York City", ed. Kathleen Benson, Syracuse University Press, 2002, page 62.]

ee also

* New York Pen League

Notes

Scholarly criticism

#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)
#Boullata, Issa J. "Iliya Abu Madi and the Riddle of Life in His Poetry" "Journal of Arabic Literature", 1986; 17: 69-81. (journal article)

ources

*"The New Anthology of American Poetry", eds. Steven Gould Axelrod, Camille Roman, Thomas J. Travisano, Rutgers University Press, 2005
*Salma Khadra Jayyusi, "Trends and Movements in Modern Arabic Poetry", Brill, 1977
*"Encyclopedia of Islam", Brill, 1980