Nano Shabtai

Shabtai’s book, very personal in theme and individualistic-idiosyncratic in style, has been termed “crass, kicking and commanding” by poet Dorit Weisman. “There are almost no poems that lack a curse word. At the same time, the book is refined, refreshing and lyrical,” Weisman writes. “It’s possible,” she continues, “to classify Shabtai in many ways: as a confessional poet, or as a prose poet. But it seems to me that she is in a class by herself.” 

Familial relationships are in focus. For Shabtai, this subject includes her parents’ divorce and her relationship with her parents: her mother, an Alexander Technique teacher and painter, and her father, a much-acclaimed and sometimes controversial Israeli poet who is also a translator of classic Greek theatre, Aharon Shabtai. 

As to her form, it is free and conversational, an original answer, according to poet Maya Bejerano, to a current formalist poetic movement in Israel “proclaiming the superiority of classic forms, of rhyme and metre . . . In this book, Shabtai declares her equality with language. She feels that . . . everything that will happen or has happened to her . . . will undergo a personal linguistic transformation, for good or bad. She isn’t at all disturbed about whether [her work] meets the criteria of [someone else’s] poetics, because, in light of the overwhelming existential situation, there’s no need to be concerned with the aesthetics of poetry.” Bibliography

The Iron Girl, Yedioth Ahronoth and Hemed Books, Tel Aviv, 2006

Links

On Nano Shabtai in Hebrew
Wikipedia

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