SA'ID, 'ALI AHMAD

born 1930, Qassabin, near Latakia, Syria pseudonym Adonis or Adunis Lebanese poet and literary critic who was a leader of the modernist movement in Arabic poetry in the mid-20th century. Sa'id received a degree in philosophy at the University of Damascus in 1954 and served in the Syrian military from 1954 to 1956. He then moved to Beirut, where he received a Ph.D. from St. Joseph University in 1973. In 1957 he helped Yusuf al-Khal found the avant-garde poetry review Shi'r, and in 1968 he launched the more radical journal Mawaqif. His early volumes of poetry included Dalilia (1950), Qasa'id ula (1956; First Poems), and Awraq fi ar-rih (1958; Leaves in the Wind). In the 1960s Sa'id helped create a new form of Arabic poetry, characterized by elevated diction and complex surrealism, with the publication of such works as Aghani Mihyar ad-Dimashqi (1961; Songs of Mihyar of Damascus), Kitab at-tahawwulat wa 'l-hijrah fi aqalim an-nahar wa 'l-layl (1965; The Book of Metamorphosis and Migration in the Regions of Day and Night), and Al-Masrah wa 'l-maraya (1968; The Stage and the Mirrors). He also wrote innovative prose poems, collected in such books as the anti-Western Qabr min ajl New York (1971; A Tomb for New York). His critical essays were collected in Zaman ash-Shi'r (1972; The Time for Poetry) and Ath-Thabit wa 'l-mutahawwil (1974; Stability and Change). English translations of selected poems appear in The Blood of Adonis (1971) and The Transformation of the Lover (1983).