Background
Abu Madi was born in the village of First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Muhaydithah, now part of Bikfaya, Lebanon, in 1889 or 1890.
Abu Madi was born in the village of First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Muhaydithah, now part of Bikfaya, Lebanon, in 1889 or 1890.
In 1911, Elia Abu Madi published his first collection of poems, Tazkar al-Madi. That same year he left Egypt for the United States, where he settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1916 he moved to New York and began a career in journalism.
In New York Abu Madi met and worked with a number of Arab-American poets including Khalil Gibran.
His second poetry collection, Diwan Iliya Abu Madi, was published in New York in 1919. His third and most important collection, First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Jadawil ("The Streams"), appeared in 1927.
His other books were First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Khama"il (1940) and Tibr wa Turab (posthumous, 1960). In 1929 Abu Madi founded his own periodical, First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Samir, in Brooklyn.
lieutenant began as a monthly but after a few years appeared five times a week.
His poems are very well known among Arabs. Journalist Gregory Orfalea wrote that "his poetry is as commonplace and memorized in the Arab world as that of Robert Frost is in ours."
Nijland, Cornelis. "Religious Motifs and Themes in North American Mahjar Poetry" pp.
161–81 Indiana: Borg, Gert (ed and introd).
De Moor, Editor (ed); Representations of the Divine in Arabic Poetry. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi.
2001. 239 pp. (book article)
Boullata, Issa J. "Iliya Abu Madi and the Riddle of Life in His Poetry" Journal of Arabic Literature, 1986.
17: 69-81. (journal article).