News at Eleven: Adonis is critical of the West's indifference to poetry,

and resignedly mourns the ongoing divorce between poetry and society. At the same time, he is less than optimistic about poetry's ability to establish itself in the national consciousness.

"We tried in the Western world. We invented political and ideologically engaged poetry, but this engagement killed both the concepts and the poetry," he said. "There will always be great poets, but we can say that poetry doesn't have a real presence in the West."

from The Prague Post: Prague Writers' Festival: Poet paints Arab world, laments fall of poetry in West

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