Rafi Weichert

(Israel, 1964)

Biography

It is no wonder at all that the city of Tel Aviv crowned Rafi Weichert the most powerful voice in the Israeli poetry field a few years back. Weichert is the chief editor of the independent Keshev publishing house, an important and prolific source of contemporary Hebrew poetry and world poetry in translation into Hebrew. To give just the most recent example, Keshev has just issued Galit Hasan-Rokem’s translation of the complete poems of Nobel Prize laureate Tomas Transtromer.

The Hebrew translator of Polish poets Wisława Szymborska (five books) and Ewa Lipska (two), Weichert, who was raised in a Polish-speaking household in Israel, is the author of 11 volumes of his own verse; his 12^th, Roof of Darkness, selections from all his books, has just been published as this entry debuts on Poetry International. In addition, he is a literary critic and a professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at Haifa University.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

POETRY

Bed [Mita], Achshav, Tel Aviv, 1994
Hurried Days [Yamim beholim], Keshev, Tel Aviv, 2000
Looking Back [Mabat hozer], Keshev, Tel Aviv, 2002
Love Note to the World: Poems 1994-2004 [Petek ahava l’olam], Keshev, Tel Aviv, 2004
An Unforeseen Hour: Poems and Translations [Sha’a lo zafuya], Keshev, Tel Aviv, 2006
The First Year of Your Life [Ba-shana rishona l’hayekh], Keshev, Tel Aviv, 2007
Slim: Sonnets [Razim], Keshev, Tel Aviv, 2008
Poems for Dar [Shirim l-dar], Keshev, Tel Aviv, 2009
Fragments and Multiples [Shvarim veh-mahfelot], Keshev, Tel Aviv, 2010
Thin Lines [Be-kavim dakim], Keshev, Tel Aviv, 2012
Hundreds [Meot], Keshev, Tel Aviv, 2012
Roof of Darkness: Selected Poems [Gag ha-hasheha], Even Hoshen, Raanana, 2013

ANTHOLOGY

The University of Darkness: Poems on Film [Hauniversitah shel hahoshek], Even Hoshen, Raanana, 2008

TRANSLATIONS

Atlantis, Wisława Szymborska, Achshav, Tel Aviv, 1993
The End and the Beginning, Wisława Szymborska, Gvanim, Tel Aviv, 1996
The End of the Century, Wisława Szymborska, Keshev, Tel Aviv, 1998
After Many Revolutions: Selected Polish Poetry Since 1945 (with David Weinfeld; afterword by Yoram Bronowski), Carmel, Jerusalem, 2000
Peasant at Noon, Tadeusz Rozewicz, Keshev, Tel Aviv, 2000
The Bat’s Closet, Ewa Lipska, Keshev, Tel Aviv, 2001
In Praise of Dreams, Wisława Szymborska, Keshev, Tel Aviv, 2004
Optional Reading, Wisława Szymborska, Keshev, Tel Aviv, 2005
Too Early to Shout, Ewa Lipska, Keshev, Tel Aviv, 2005
Colon, Wisława Szymborska, Keshev, Tel Aviv, 2009

LINKS

In English
Odyssey – a poem

In Hebrew
An hour-long radio interview with the poet
Wikipedia page for Rafi Weichert
The poet’s homepage
Ohio State University’s Lexicon of Contemporary Hebrew Literature.

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