Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

Wisdom Literature: The Aphorisms of Yahia Lababidi

By Glynn Young 2 Comments

Tree in lake Lababidi aphorisms
The irony of the writer is that of a private person in a public profession.

Aphorisms, those simple expressions of general truth, have a long and rather distinguished pedigree. Hippocrates, Pythagoras, Hesiod, Erasmus, Pascal, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Oscar Wilde, Gustave Flaubert, George Bernard Shaw, Dorothy Parker, and countless others were known for their pithy, often witty one-liners that expressed a great truth. And aphorisms have long been collected as a group and published, as the proverbs of the Old Testament Bible, the Islamic hadiths, and the Hindu Sutra testify.

Fables endure, but truths are revised.

The fact is, we love our sharp, pointed one-liners. They often encapsulate whole philosophies and beliefs. And aphorisms are also something else as well — an integral part of the world’s wisdom literature, folk wisdom, and what poet Yahia Lababidi calls “the poetry of the streets.”

Aphorism: what is worth quoting from the soul’s dialogue with itself.

Signposts to Elsewhere Lababidi aphorismsLababidi should know. He’s a poet, a writer, an essayist, and an aphorist. In 2008, he published a collection of aphorisms, many gleaned from the streets of his native Egypt. He recently revised, updated, and added to them with his recent Signposts to Elsewhere.

Revelation: the application of an old truth.

Featured two to a page, his aphorisms number about 300. He wrote most of them, he says, by the time he was 22. Read them, and you think the author is an old man in his 80s.

Respect for our elders is another form of respect for life.

While aphorisms have always been popular, Lababidi notes they have enjoyed a resurgence in recent years, due in no small part to social media. They’re almost ideally designed for a platform like Twitter, and it’s no coincidence that media like Instagram have driven a renewed interest in poetry. A poet is aware of the sense, the rhythm, and the movement of an aphorism, because poetry is filled with these one-line devices. Poetic prose is as well; in the introduction, Lababidi says that “unlike mere prose, aphorisms can keep their secrets … deepening our silences so that we might overhear ourselves.” That sentence is two aphorisms packed poetically into one. Try saying it out loud, in a quiet voice, and you may overhear yourself.

Poetry: play on worlds.

Yababidi’s poems and writing have been featured in several anthologies and published in such literary journals as Poetry, The Literary Review, The Prague Review, Tikkun, and many others. He’s received a number of prizes and recognitions for his work, including two nominations for a Pushcart Prize.

Even the most imaginative writers are merely scribes to their inspiration.

Yahia Lababidi aphorisms

Yahia Lababidi

And his poems have been translated into several languages. He has published several previous collections of poetry, including Fever Dreams (2011), Barely There: Short Poems (2013) and Balancing Acts (2016). Also in 2013, he published a collection of essays with the fascinating title of Trial by Ink: From Nietzsche to Belly Dancing. A series of conversations in 2012 with his friend Alex Stern led to their collection as a book, The Artist as Mystic: Conversations with Yahia Lababidi.

Two good reasons to read: to better understand oneself or to forget oneself altogether.

Signposts to Elsewhere is a beautifully rendered work. I’ve read it three times now, and each time it’s as if I’m reading something entirely new. Each time I find something I missed before, even as an aphorism becomes familiar. And each time I think I’m reading rather profound poetry.

Language bestows her favours on those who flatter her.

(All italicized aphorisms are from Signposts to Elsewhere by Yahir Lababidi.)

Related:

Poets and Poems: Yahi Lababidi and “Balancing Acts”

Ochtend / Dawning – A Video Poem

Photo by Ian Dick, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young.

Browse more book reviews

__________________________

How to Read a Poem by Tania Runyan How to Read a Poem uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch (from the Billy Collins poem)—to guide readers into new ways of understanding poems. Anthology included.

“I require all our incoming poetry students—in the MFA I direct—to buy and read this book.”

—Jeanetta Calhoun Mish

Buy How to Read a Poem Now!

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Glynn Young
Glynn Young
Editor and Twitter-Party-Cool-Poem-Weaver at Tweetspeak Poetry
Glynn Young lives in St. Louis where he retired as the team leader for Online Strategy & Communications for a Fortune 500 company. Glynn writes poetry, short stories and fiction, and he loves to bike. He is the author of the Civil War romance Brookhaven, as well as Poetry at Work and the Dancing Priest Series. Find Glynn at Faith, Fiction, Friends.
Glynn Young
Latest posts by Glynn Young (see all)
  • Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass” - May 22, 2025
  • A History of Children’s Stories: “The Haunted Wood” by Sam Leith - May 20, 2025
  • World War II Had Its Poets, Too - May 15, 2025

Filed Under: article, book reviews, Books, Poems, poetry, poetry reviews, Poets, wisdom literature, Year of Wisdom

Try Every Day Poems...

Comments

  1. Maureen says

    January 7, 2020 at 11:07 am

    Yahia is a friend of mine; he’s thoughtful, courageous, and peace-loving. He writes wonderful poetry – and aphorisms – and reads aloud beautifully.

    Reply
  2. Will Willingham says

    January 11, 2020 at 10:49 am

    I love these works that you can read over and over and not be tired by them. Thanks for sharing Lababidi’s work here, Glynn.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our May Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • Donna Hilbert on Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass”
  • L.L. Barkat on Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass”
  • Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass” - Tweetspeak Poetry on Love, Etc.: Poems of Love, Laughter, Longing & Loss
  • Glynn on World War II Had Its Poets, Too

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy