Article
The Importance of Lightness
January 18, 2006
The test of poetry is its ability to engross, to create interest, and even to puzzle us to a certain extent, without, of course, being superficial, and yet without wrinkling our foreheads. Hezi Leskly’s last poems belong to this type: intending to amuse, to surprise, they create an unfamiliar perspective, revitalizing the mode of writing and the use of language. Sometimes the riddles cannot be deciphered, but this does not damage the wonderful balance between ambiguity and clarity.
Mishori, in my estimation, did well to read Leskly’s poetry, which helped her to forge the lightness of her work. However, Mishori’s conceptual phrasing, as in
I hold
myself
my self concept
the concept of the chair
the concept of the back of the chair
and the concept of leaning
clearly recalls Aharon Shabtai’s writing, which predates Leskly in the tendency toward the conceptual and the abstract, without Leskly’s riddling aspect. Mishori belongs to the poetics of (the impression of) lightness (in contrast to that of popular song, to which her work bears no resemblance), without downplaying the vestiges of other poets’ voices. This book reveals her personal version of the writing of lightness, different from Shabtai and Leskly in that the emotional dimension is more noticeable, her speaker more exposed, and she often uses the technique of repetition in order to augment volume and length. Seen from this angle, the relatively long poems in the book have more rhythmic and experiential power than the shorter ones, which are clever puzzles rather than mature poems.
Various structures of repetition appear in Mishori’s poetry as a means of channeling and balancing threatening emotional content. Similarly, sarcasm is enlisted to create distance from what is obviously wounding, and to avoid a rhetorical and pathos-laden response. The poems which open the book deal with a painful subject (alienation from the mother and the daughter’s longing for her) and an effort to find a witty and distant enough language that will turn point-of-view into a lifesaver. A successful example of how irony turns suffering into a surprising glance at mother and daughter may be found in the poem ‘Lines for Your Non-Existence’.
The ability to dismantle situations into their components and to reassemble them in an unusual and unexpected fashion is what creates a refreshing point of view, generally located at the end of Mishori’s poems. Even when the emotional network is depicted as tense and not likely to change, poetic distance allows for a change in perspective, an artistic correction to experience. The need to remain ‘light’ stems not only from consideration for the reader, but first of all for the writer herself: without this sharp and clear lightness, it will be hard for her to move and take flight via her new point of view.
Lightness is also the place where the connection between words and things, taken for granted, is severed. The use of common preconceptions is also intended to question their validity, in an act which makes possible a new self definition. Dismantling doesn’t appear to be a kind of clever trick but rather a clarification of the whole meaning of the linguistic sign.
Yet Mishori subverts the movement toward lightness that has always characterized her poetry, perhaps out of a feeling that it has played itself out. The flower poems in this volume are harbingers of a new direction, in which a symbol taking on more and more meaning becomes the focus of the poem. Here too Mishori is aided by a rhythmic structure which is repeated and underscores the subject matter (or the presence of the speaker) in each line. But, instead of dismantling meanings, these poems seek to create ‘deep’ space with the aid of a developed expressionistic image.
Excerpted and translated with permission for PIW from a review of The Physical Mouth, Haaretz book supplement, 19 March 2003.
Efrat Mishori’s poetry is characterized by its ‘lightness’. The ability to dismantle situations into their components and to reassemble them in an unusual and unexpected fashion is what creates a refreshing point of view.
Efrat Mishori really tries to write user-friendly poetry which creates an impression of lightness and clarity, two sure advantages, when you consider that poetry can also be overladen to disadvantage, dull and wearying. I am not claiming that the quality of poetry lies in what is seen as ‘depth’, in the creation of a text which compels endless effort on the part of the reader to delve into a wide range of hints and patterns, without whose help we would not be able to understand the poem.The test of poetry is its ability to engross, to create interest, and even to puzzle us to a certain extent, without, of course, being superficial, and yet without wrinkling our foreheads. Hezi Leskly’s last poems belong to this type: intending to amuse, to surprise, they create an unfamiliar perspective, revitalizing the mode of writing and the use of language. Sometimes the riddles cannot be deciphered, but this does not damage the wonderful balance between ambiguity and clarity.
Mishori, in my estimation, did well to read Leskly’s poetry, which helped her to forge the lightness of her work. However, Mishori’s conceptual phrasing, as in
I hold
myself
my self concept
the concept of the chair
the concept of the back of the chair
and the concept of leaning
clearly recalls Aharon Shabtai’s writing, which predates Leskly in the tendency toward the conceptual and the abstract, without Leskly’s riddling aspect. Mishori belongs to the poetics of (the impression of) lightness (in contrast to that of popular song, to which her work bears no resemblance), without downplaying the vestiges of other poets’ voices. This book reveals her personal version of the writing of lightness, different from Shabtai and Leskly in that the emotional dimension is more noticeable, her speaker more exposed, and she often uses the technique of repetition in order to augment volume and length. Seen from this angle, the relatively long poems in the book have more rhythmic and experiential power than the shorter ones, which are clever puzzles rather than mature poems.
Various structures of repetition appear in Mishori’s poetry as a means of channeling and balancing threatening emotional content. Similarly, sarcasm is enlisted to create distance from what is obviously wounding, and to avoid a rhetorical and pathos-laden response. The poems which open the book deal with a painful subject (alienation from the mother and the daughter’s longing for her) and an effort to find a witty and distant enough language that will turn point-of-view into a lifesaver. A successful example of how irony turns suffering into a surprising glance at mother and daughter may be found in the poem ‘Lines for Your Non-Existence’.
The ability to dismantle situations into their components and to reassemble them in an unusual and unexpected fashion is what creates a refreshing point of view, generally located at the end of Mishori’s poems. Even when the emotional network is depicted as tense and not likely to change, poetic distance allows for a change in perspective, an artistic correction to experience. The need to remain ‘light’ stems not only from consideration for the reader, but first of all for the writer herself: without this sharp and clear lightness, it will be hard for her to move and take flight via her new point of view.
Lightness is also the place where the connection between words and things, taken for granted, is severed. The use of common preconceptions is also intended to question their validity, in an act which makes possible a new self definition. Dismantling doesn’t appear to be a kind of clever trick but rather a clarification of the whole meaning of the linguistic sign.
Yet Mishori subverts the movement toward lightness that has always characterized her poetry, perhaps out of a feeling that it has played itself out. The flower poems in this volume are harbingers of a new direction, in which a symbol taking on more and more meaning becomes the focus of the poem. Here too Mishori is aided by a rhythmic structure which is repeated and underscores the subject matter (or the presence of the speaker) in each line. But, instead of dismantling meanings, these poems seek to create ‘deep’ space with the aid of a developed expressionistic image.
Excerpted and translated with permission for PIW from a review of The Physical Mouth, Haaretz book supplement, 19 March 2003.
© Yochai Oppenheimer
Translator: Lisa Katz
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