In Remembrance, Etel Adnan
Etel Adnan (1925–2021)
We at the CSU Poetry Center were saddened to hear of the passing this weekend of Etel Adnan, poet, writer, painter, and extraordinary presence in world art and literature. We are grateful for the generous decades of innovative work she offered and for all those who helped bring that work to the readers who needed it. Adnan’s work provides a model for writing deeply engaged with the suffering of others. In her poetry and prose she builds continually attentive illuminating forms of complexity that help us glimpse how we need to live among and for one another. At the same time her paintings often realized their vision with stunning simplicity—a handful of contrasting colors and interlocking shapes rendering a mountain. When I was fortunate enough to see her landscapes on display I often found myself wordless, as if in the presence of simply time and light.
Adnan lived with warm grace, generosity, and interest in others, another model for us all. I was a young editor in 2008 when I worked on her book Master of the Eclipse (its title story a devastating and vital account of the US’s wars on Iraq). It’s hard to imagine how anyone could have been more collaborative and inclusive. Few people would or do treat a young inexperienced editor, just assigned to their book, that way. It was only years later that I could fully appreciate how exceptional and inviting she was.
In the final decades of her life, Adnan’s paintings gained newfound popularity around the world. Her poetry received important new attention, including the landmark publication of a two-volume reader and the 2020 Griffin Prize, shared with translator Sarah Riggs. But her work still has more to offer, it has yet to receive the full depth and breadth of attention it has always deserved. She can help us keep building new forms for living amid the violence and struggle of this world. For my own part I’ll share below an essay I wrote on The Arab Apocalypse, in hopes of many future conversations about the work she has left with and for us.
Thank you, Etel Adnan.
—Hilary Plum
