Written Works

Naimy's only volume of collected poems appeared as late as 1945. It includes 44 poems and 4 drawings by the Author. One of the poems (If but Thorns Realized, pp. 28-29) is illustrated by a pencil drawing by Kahlil Gibran. In the drawing is a patch of rough, prickly bramble. Just outside the patch and all by itself stands a white lily with a long stalk. In the bramble and agonizingly caught by the thorns are a number of naked men hopelessly in search of the lily whose smell they detect but whose place they cannot identify. Near the lily and just outside the thorny patch stands a man giant. His back to the men and the thorns, and his head soaring high until it touches the clouds, he is able to see the flower and puts his right hand gently over it.

Night and the Madman (From "The Madman"), The Seven Arts, November, 1916, pp. 32-33.

On Giving and Taking, The Syrian World, 4, 7, March 1930, p. 32 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

On Giving and Taking, The Syrian World, 5, 2, October 1930, p. 38 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Poems from the Arabic (The Two Hermits, My Friend, The Three Ants, God), The Seven Arts, May, 1917, pp. 64-67.

Qabla al-Intihar: Safhah Matwiyah min Dafatir Haffar al-Qubur al-Qadimah [Short Story], al-Funun 1, no. 5 (August 1913), p. 1-3 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Qard al-Hurriyah [Essay], al-Umam wa-Dhawatuha [Essay], al-Funun 3, no. 8 (August 1918), pp. v-ix; 561-5 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Rasaʼil Jubran [Letters of Kahlil Gibran], Introduction by Jamil Jabr, Beirut: Manshurat Maktabat Bayrut, 1951.

Ru’ya [Short Story], al-Hasan ibn Hani al-Mulaqqab bi-Abi Nuwas [Drawing], Ya Nafs [Poem], al-Funun 2, no. 1 (June 1916), pp. 1-3; 65; 70-71 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

An-Nashi’a (The New Generation) was a comprehensive monthly literary magazine dedicated to the advancement of scientific and cultural life in post-World War I Iraq. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in that war, Iraq was placed under a League of Nations mandate administered by the British. In 1921, a monarchy was established, and the country went on to gain independence from Britain in 1932. An-Nashi’a was founded at the beginning of the monarchy, and its first editorial declared that the new publication was a response to the needs of the new nation. Only three issues (called parts) appeared before An-Nashi’a ceased publication. The magazine was owned by Ibrahim Salih; its editor-in-chief was Hassan al-Bayati. Each issue started with long essays on a wide range of issues covering literature, science, arts, philosophy, history, new discoveries, lifestyle, and other news and anecdotes from around the world, especially from America. Examples of topics covered included the value of learning; sea life, minerals, and other resources; poets and poems; lessons from history, which cited Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar; sports, and particularly how American newspapers dedicated many pages on a daily basis to news about sports; the “don’ts” of social etiquette; and “immortal words,” a collection of wisdom attributed to figures from around the world, including George Washington. Overall, the magazine had a progressive and worldly air, although it remained anchored in Arabic culture. The last page was typically “from management” and was dedicated to correcting typographical errors, with apologies to the readers. In addition to the owner and the editor-in-chief, contributing writers included some of the leading pan-Arab intellectuals at that time, such as Iraqi Kurdish poet and philosopher Jamīl Ṣidqi Zahawi, Egyptian writer and essayist Mustafa Lutfi Manfaluti, Turkish-Egyptian poet Waliy ud-Deen Yakun, and Lebanese-American writer and artist Kahlil Gibran.

In 1926 Gibran published Sand and Foam. It comprises about three hundred aphorisms of two to a dozen lines, generally written in the style of The Prophet. Sand and Foam is decorated with Gibran’s drawings, and the aphorisms are separated by floral dingbats also drawn by Gibran. Some scholars consider this book the off cuts of The Prophet, written on various materials from match box cartons and napkins whenever inspiration would take hold.

Tears and Laughter, Translated from the Arabic by Anthony R. Ferris, Edited by Martin L. Wolf, New York: Philosophical Library, 1947.

The Astronomer (From the Drama, "The Madman"), On Giving and Taking (From the Drama, "The Madman"), The Seven Arts, January, 1917, pp. 236-237.

The Deeper Pain, The Syrian World, 6, 3, November 1931, p. 10 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

In 1920 Knopf published 'The Forerunner: His Parables and Poems.' It begins with a prologue in which the narrator says that each person is his or her own forerunner. Among the twenty-three parables are one in which a king abandons his kingdom for the forest; another in which a saint meets a brigand and confesses to committing the same sins as the bandit; and a third in which a weathercock complains because the wind always blows in his face. The volume closes with a speech, “The Last Watch,” presumably by the Forerunner, addressing the people of a sleeping city. The bitterness of the wartime writings of the years is largely gone, replaced by an ethereal love and pity for humanity that foreshadows Gibran’s later work.

At his death Gibran was working on The Garden of the Prophet (1933), which was to be the second volume in a trilogy begun by The Prophet. It is the story of Almustafa’s return to his native island and deals with humanity’s relationship with nature. Of the third volume, “The Death of the Prophet,” only one sentence was written: “And he shall return to the City of Orphalese . . . and they shall stone him in the market-place, even unto death; and he shall call every stone a blessed name.”

The Greater Sea (From the Drama, "The Madman"), The Seven Arts, December, 1916, pp. 133-134.

Gibran’s first book in English, 'The Madman: His Parables and Poems,' was completed in 1917; it was brought out in 1918 by the young literary publisher Alfred A. Knopf, who went on to publish all of Gibran’s English works. An introduction, in which the narrator tells how he became a madman when a thief stole his masks and he ran maskless through the streets, is followed by a series of pieces that were written, and sometimes published, separately. Most were composed in Arabic and translated into English by Gibran with Haskell’s editorial assistance. New here are a sardonic or bitter tone and a move from prose poem to parable as Gibran’s major mode of expression. The pieces include “The Two Cages,” in which a caged sparrow greets a caged lion each morning as “brother,” and “The Three Ants,” in which the insects meet on the nose of a sleeping man. The first two remark on the barren nature of this strange land; the third insists that they are on the nose of the Supreme Ant. The other ants laugh at his strange preaching; at that moment the man awakes, scratches his nose, and crushes the ants. Reviews were mixed but mostly positive. Mayy Ziyada, however, told Gibran that the “cruelty” and “dark caverns” in the work made her nervous. Several of the poems were anthologized in poetry collections.

The Seven Selves (From "The Madman" — a Drama), The Seven Arts, February, 1917, pp. 345-356.