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Welcome to Israeli poetry - February 2005
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18 januari 2006
As editor of the Israeli pages, I intend to continue in this direction. Those who are unable to read the wealth of Israeli poetry in the original deserve to become acquainted with more and more brilliant poets whose work satisfies an existing hunger and grants food for thought to its readers, an opportunity to identify with it or to protest against it, and continuous spiritual enrichment.
The two poets who open our third year provoke controversy and even scandal in their work, for entirely different reasons. {id="3158" title="Aharon Shabtai"}, born in 1939, with nearly 40 years of writing to his credit, and twenty books, is deservedly considered the greatest contemporary translator of Classical Greek into Hebrew, as well as a brilliant poet. Entire volumes of his poetry have been translated into French and English, while individual poems have appeared in a dozen other languages.
Shabtai is a sharp-tongued and witty thinker. His political beliefs have moved from left to right and back again over the last 40 years. In his direct and original way, he often uses crude language, and doesn’t hesitate to criticize and protest any human phenomenon, political or social, which is not to his taste. His writing sometimes provokes the anger of readers who are irritated by his bold sexual imagery, his political messages, and his ruthless sniping at the establishment.
Forty-year-old {id="3166" title="Efrat Mishori"} has published four books of poetry to date. She received the Israeli Prime Minister’s Prize for Literature in 2001, an apparent mark of recognition from the establishment, but is best known not only as a controversial poet but also for her poetry performances – refreshing to some, and highly disturbing to others. Mishori, who calls herself “The Model of Poetry”, stretches language to its borders and beyond, with great virtuosity. For this reason, some people, mostly the young and rebellious, look upon her as a subversive, interdisciplinary artist, original and daring, who has given up from the outset on the ambition to enter the canon of Hebrew poetry; others claim that she is merely a disturbed provocateur, and that her poetry isn’t really poetry at all.
The Israeli pages of PIW have not sought to judge the poets which appear in them, or rank their poems according to particular preferences, but rather to present them in a straightforward and appropriate manner. The choice of these poets to open the third year is intended to focus the spotlight on a noticeable phenomenon in current Israeli poetry. There may be those who consider this choice marginal. Still, even the glance which for justifiable reasons focuses on the center of poetic activity cannot ignore movement outside its circle. In any case, Aharon Shabtai is undoubtedly one of the most important and interesting poets writing Hebrew today. Mishori, too, still making her way in literature, is not repeating her first steps. In her books and her performances, she is not only original and innovative, but exhibits literary, linguistic and artistic talent.
To begin the third year, we offer here in addition to four poems in his translation, {id="3134" title="Peter Cole’s introduction"} to his English-language edition of Aharon Shabtai’s recent political poetry J’Accuse. Two critical articles, by {id="3127" title="Yochai Oppenheimer"} and {id="3086" title="Galia Yahav"}, which have appeared in the Israeli press, address Mishori’s poetry, which is presented here in translations by Anat Schultz and Aloma Halter. In addition, the editor of these pages has written {id="3084" title="on Shabtai’s ‘Passover, 2002’"}, and the edition includes as well {id="3089" title="remarks by Sasson Somekh"} on the passing of the gifted poet-translator Mohammed Hamza Ghanayem, may his memory be blessed.
Enjoy! All prose translations on the Israeli domain are by PIW editor Lisa Katz, unless otherwise indicated.
{id="3083" title="Rami Saari"}, National Editor
{id="3083" title="Lisa Katz"}, English Language Editor
The Israeli national site is produced by {id="3098" title="Mishkenot Sha'ananim"} International Cultural Centre in Jerusalem.
Despite the voices repeating themselves day and night about the end of Hebrew poetry and/or the state of Israel, the fountain of creativity has not been staunched. Two ‘scandalous’ poets open our third year online.
Twenty-one poets have been featured to date – writers of different national origins, religions, languages, sexes and ages. It has been important to present in these pages a varied rather than an ‘average’ picture of contemporary Israeli poetry, as well as surveying past developments in Hebrew writing which influenced and shaped current work. For this reason Israeli-born poets have been presented alongside those born abroad, Arab as well as Jewish poets, women and men, the dead and the living, young and old, those on the political right, as well as center and left, poets of different tastes and hues – intended to cast light on the vast, vital range of creativity flourishing in Israel today, and offer up a small bite of its delicacies, on the tines of a fork as it were. As editor of the Israeli pages, I intend to continue in this direction. Those who are unable to read the wealth of Israeli poetry in the original deserve to become acquainted with more and more brilliant poets whose work satisfies an existing hunger and grants food for thought to its readers, an opportunity to identify with it or to protest against it, and continuous spiritual enrichment.
The two poets who open our third year provoke controversy and even scandal in their work, for entirely different reasons. {id="3158" title="Aharon Shabtai"}, born in 1939, with nearly 40 years of writing to his credit, and twenty books, is deservedly considered the greatest contemporary translator of Classical Greek into Hebrew, as well as a brilliant poet. Entire volumes of his poetry have been translated into French and English, while individual poems have appeared in a dozen other languages.
Shabtai is a sharp-tongued and witty thinker. His political beliefs have moved from left to right and back again over the last 40 years. In his direct and original way, he often uses crude language, and doesn’t hesitate to criticize and protest any human phenomenon, political or social, which is not to his taste. His writing sometimes provokes the anger of readers who are irritated by his bold sexual imagery, his political messages, and his ruthless sniping at the establishment.
Forty-year-old {id="3166" title="Efrat Mishori"} has published four books of poetry to date. She received the Israeli Prime Minister’s Prize for Literature in 2001, an apparent mark of recognition from the establishment, but is best known not only as a controversial poet but also for her poetry performances – refreshing to some, and highly disturbing to others. Mishori, who calls herself “The Model of Poetry”, stretches language to its borders and beyond, with great virtuosity. For this reason, some people, mostly the young and rebellious, look upon her as a subversive, interdisciplinary artist, original and daring, who has given up from the outset on the ambition to enter the canon of Hebrew poetry; others claim that she is merely a disturbed provocateur, and that her poetry isn’t really poetry at all.
The Israeli pages of PIW have not sought to judge the poets which appear in them, or rank their poems according to particular preferences, but rather to present them in a straightforward and appropriate manner. The choice of these poets to open the third year is intended to focus the spotlight on a noticeable phenomenon in current Israeli poetry. There may be those who consider this choice marginal. Still, even the glance which for justifiable reasons focuses on the center of poetic activity cannot ignore movement outside its circle. In any case, Aharon Shabtai is undoubtedly one of the most important and interesting poets writing Hebrew today. Mishori, too, still making her way in literature, is not repeating her first steps. In her books and her performances, she is not only original and innovative, but exhibits literary, linguistic and artistic talent.
To begin the third year, we offer here in addition to four poems in his translation, {id="3134" title="Peter Cole’s introduction"} to his English-language edition of Aharon Shabtai’s recent political poetry J’Accuse. Two critical articles, by {id="3127" title="Yochai Oppenheimer"} and {id="3086" title="Galia Yahav"}, which have appeared in the Israeli press, address Mishori’s poetry, which is presented here in translations by Anat Schultz and Aloma Halter. In addition, the editor of these pages has written {id="3084" title="on Shabtai’s ‘Passover, 2002’"}, and the edition includes as well {id="3089" title="remarks by Sasson Somekh"} on the passing of the gifted poet-translator Mohammed Hamza Ghanayem, may his memory be blessed.
Enjoy! All prose translations on the Israeli domain are by PIW editor Lisa Katz, unless otherwise indicated.
{id="3083" title="Rami Saari"}, National Editor
{id="3083" title="Lisa Katz"}, English Language Editor
The Israeli national site is produced by {id="3098" title="Mishkenot Sha'ananim"} International Cultural Centre in Jerusalem.
© Rami Saari
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