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  • May Ziadeh portrait by Kahlih Gibran

    From Darkness and Light – May Ziadeh’s astonishing Eyes

    May Ziadeh was a platonic and distant love of Kahlil Gibran. Such an inadequate way to remember her. More importantly, as poet, she is his female counterpart, even though she is virtually unknown in the English speaking world. Her poetry is beautiful in Arabic and sometimes has a poignancy difficult to capture in translation. She and Gibran corresponded for twenty years, although they never met. Perhaps, Gibran memorialised her in his poem Distant Love. This article is dedicated to May Ziadeh’s poem Eyes (العُيُون), originally published in her collection of poems called Darkness and Rays or Darkness and Light (ظلمات وأشعة). Ziadeh’s poem Eyes (العُيُون) speaks for itself. Her original…

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