“I composed poetry before I knew how to write”

January 18, 2006 Lynn Levin: Your poems appear to be mystic investigations of knowledge. They seem predicated on ideas of pre-existing forces and a wisdom with which human beings intensely desire to connect. Is this correct? Can you speak to this?

Amir Or: It’s correct for some of my poems. My late work is basically such as you described. You can call it mystical research. But I don’t really enjoy using this word. I think it’s more a type of existential research. If we really want to understand where we are, why we are, and what our purpose is, you have to talk about a lifetime research. It’s the most exciting research we can do as humans and as poets.

Levin: What is your opinion of such mystic systems as gnosticism and kabbalism?

Or: Well, Gnosticism is at the roots of Kabbalism, in a way, plus Neoplatonism and many generations of Jewish thought. I’m interested, yes, but I’m interested in Kabbalism as much as I’m interested in Buddhism, Hinduism, Neoplatonism, et cetera. I think you get something from each of them, and you have to find out what is truly relevant for you. If you look at a Zen Buddhist, he walks in the desert. If you look at a Tantric, he walks in a jungle. And you have to know who you are to know your way. Nobody can teach you that but of course you can profit from anything that goes deep in the soul and talks about that search, and if you feel an affinity with other people who seek.

Levin: Do you believe in the immortality of the soul?

Or: Yes, I do. I think we are not newcomers here. I don’t think it all ends with the decaying of the body.

Levin: Your poems seem to combine Hellenic imagery and Biblical imagery. Can you talk about the role of myth in your writing?

Or: I have been very interested in myth ever since childhood, and this interest carried over into my poetry and my academic career. I taught comparative religion at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. But it’s very different, of course, because once myth goes into your imagery it becomes alive. It becomes a reality for you. Actually what is reality? We have different forms of reality in our minds, like stations on a radio. One station is called the facts of wakefulness. But it’s not less real when you dream. It’s not less real when you go inside yourself. It’s only more rare.

Levin: What are some of the issues you struggle with in your poetry, the thematic and poetic issues?

Or: This goes together, I think. Each theme decides the style. If I want to write love poetry I probably use a different style than when I write a more existential or philosophical poem. So the question is both thematic and poetic, always. I may use free verse, a sonnet, or even Hebrew poetic forms of medieval Spain. For example, my book Day is divided into chapters named after the Jewish prayers. In the chapter ‘Kiddush’ I made use of the medieval forms of prayers over wine, and in the chapter ‘Tikkun’ I had in mind the Yom Kippur prayers. Forms are not merely forms, but modes and poetic containers that preserve human thoughts, feelings, culture. The themes of my poetry vary and naturally changed through life. I guess I always had a special interest in religion, myth, and historical memory. I was also concerned quite often with the experience of human relationships – love, family, separation, sex, social justice, and so on. I think these themes are universal. Themes evolve from human experience and therefore cannot be truly unique. What is sometimes unique is the way a poet thinks, feels, and writes about human experience.

Levin: When and why did you start to write poetry?

Or: The answer is a bit funny. Actually I composed poetry before I knew how to write. Little poems about my teddy bear and so on that my mom used to write down. So poetry was always there as far back as I can remember.

Levin: Which poets have influenced you?

Or: Well, it’s not a direct influence. But poets who inspired me a lot? First of all the classics – the Greek, Latin, and Indian poetry. I was very interested in the epics and Greek poetry which I translated into Hebrew. I studied Ancient Greek because I was so inspired by its literature. To be an editor one must have rather pluralistic tastes to start with, and I am no exception. But when you talk about inspiration it’s different. Of course, I am inspired first of all by Hebrew poetry, from the Bible up to modern times. I would mention along this line Israeli poets like Nathan Alterman, Yonatan Ratosh, Shaul Tchernikhovsky, and Uri Tzvi Greenberg. I don’t always agree with them, but I admire their style and way of talking.

Levin: What about some of your favorite non-Israeli poets?

Or: To make a brief list, the names that come to mind are Homer, Sappho, Pindar, Jalaludin Rumi, Basho, Riyokan, John Donne, Byron, Rilke, Pound, Eliot, Milosz, Ramanujan, and Kuzmin. But in the last two years I especially enjoy going back to the epics and to mythical and religious poetry, such as the Iliad, the Mahabharata, the Rigveda, and the Persian Gatha.

Levin: How has your work changed and evolved over the years?

Or: It evolved with my age, you could say. When I was younger there was a lot of love poetry. There was a lot about politics, not foreign politics, but politics of the genders, of the family, of sex. Later I was interested in social things. At that time I wrote So!, a book that has different speakers – a policeman, a prostitute, an SS officer. After that my poetry moved towards what you might call ‘metaphysical’ themes. These areas interested me long before I actually wrote about them extensively, but you see, there is a stage when it comes into the poetry and suddenly it is possible for you to express and create and think through the poetry. For me poetry is really a path. A way to grow. So when these metaphysical ideas began to enter my work I was happy because I not only found a way to express past thoughts, but actually found through my poetry a new route toward their understanding. That’s where I am now.


First published in Poetry Life & Times online, February 2001. Lynn Levin is the author of two collections of poems, A Few Questions About Paradise (Loonfeather Press, 2000) and Imaginarium (Loonfeather Press, 2004).