Ounsi El Hage

Ounsi El Hage Poems

Ounsi El Hage Biography

Born in 1937. - Son of journalist and translator Louis El Hage, and of Marie Akl, from Kaitouli, Jezzine (South of Lebanon). - Did his school studies in the “Lycée français”, then in “La Sagesse” High School. - Began to publish short stories, essays and poems in literary magazines since 1954, while he was still a high school student. - Started exercising daily journalism professionally in Al Hayat in 1956, as director of the cultural page. Then he moved to An Nahar newspaper, where he edited for years the non political pages, and transformed the daily cultural column into a daily cultural page. - In 1964, he founded and published “Al Mulhaq", the weekly cultural supplement of An Nahar newspaper, until 1974, with the cooperation of Chawki Abi Chakra during the first half of the above-mentioned period. - In 1957, he contributed with Youssef Khal and Adonis to the foundation of the poetry magazine "Shi’r", and in 1960 he published in the latter’s editions his first poetry book, "Lan", the first compilation of poems in prose in Arabic language. - Published six compilations of poetry: Lan (1960), The chopped head (1963), The past of forthcoming days (1965), What have you made with the gold what have you done with the rose (1970), The Messenger with her hair long until the sources (1975), The banquet (1994). - Also published a book of essays in 3 volumes under the title of "Words, words, words", and a book of philosophical contemplations and aphorisms in two volumes: "Khawatem". The third volume of Khawatem is to appear soon, as well as a set of unpublished works. - Was editor-in-chief of several magazines, simultaneously with his permanent work in An Nahar, among which "Al Hasna" magazine in 1966 and "Arab and international Nahar” between 1977 and 1989. - Starting 1963, he translated more than ten plays of Shakespeare, Ionesco, Camus and Brecht into Arabic, plays that have been staged by the school of modern acting (Baalbek festival) as well as by directors Nidal Al Ashkar, Roger Assaf and Berge Vaslian. - Married to Layla Daou (since 1957), father of Nada and Louis. - Editor-in-chief of An Nahar newspaper from 1992 till September 30, 2003. - A choice of his poems has been translated into French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Armenian and Finnish. - An anthology of his poetry, "Flying eternity", was published in French by the publishing house "Actes Sud" in Paris in 1997, and another anthology entitled "Love and the fox, Love and the others", appeared in a bilingual German /Arabic edition in Berlin in 1998. The first was supervised and introduced by Abdel Kader Janabi, and the second translated by Khaled Al Maali and Herbert Becker. -Summarizing his biography to answer a question by Professors Nabil Ayoub, Hind Adib d’Orléans and George Kallas in the setting of an interview edited by poet Elias Lahoud in the "contemporary writings" magazine (issue 38 - August / September 1999), Ounsi El Hage declared: "I often told the same history. I don't believe that it is of any interest to anyone. I have more remorse than achievements, and all that I have done I did without my knowledge. When nobody used to ask me for my opinion on things, such as love and death, I willingly said the truth, but then I stopped saying it as soon as there was someone to ask".)

The Best Poem Of Ounsi El Hage

The Cup

I shall not stop,
I shall not stop
Beneath the moon clothed in white,
Drowning in the morrow
With a fast-beating heart.
You remain mine, when I am aware,
You remain mine, when I am unaware.
There, in the wells of spacious churches,
In festivals
And the glimmering of windows,
The fields of folksong,
The desperate hum of din,
The departure of ships and wine,
You remain mine.
The shrivelled and the fresh stop short,
And the earth stretches forth its head
And pursues us from word to word,
From bird
To bird.
I heard from afar,
And from afar,
And when I tried to approach,
You held up your hand.
I heard from afar
And saw the ancient peoples
There, beyond the woods.

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