Tel Aviv Diary: Karen Alkalay-Gut

A Few Words About Rape in the News

Karen Alkalay-Gut — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:55:07 +0000

Does anyone remember those days in Israel when the idea of rape seemed not to exist? Of course it must have been there – but I hitch-hiked criss-cross this country and can remember only one incident when it was uncomfortable (and that was really my fault – what was I doing hitching a boat-ride with two guys across the sea of Galilee?)

Anyway, the news now seems to bring only stories of sexual crimes, and Ezi’s theory is that the increased violence is connected to the occupation. I’m not convinced it’s just because we learn to beat up on people in the territories. I think it’s also because we need to distract ourselves with more and more colorful violence so we don’t pay attention to our actual political powerlessness. We pretend we’re in control and the crimes are coming from elsewhere, not from ourselves. It’s like a paranoia that is useful because it keeps us busy and makes us feel we’re on our toes, but in reality we’re ignorant and helpless.

Chava Rosenfarb and Goldie Morgenthaler

Karen Alkalay-Gut — Sun, 13 May 2012 14:34:33 +0000

An article today in the Forward by Goldie Morgenthaler reminded me of the wonderful experience I had reading Chava Rosenfarb’s
Survivors. It first appeared in Interdisciplinary Literary Studies: A Journal of Criticism and Theory, Vol. 9, Number 2, Spring, 2008, 123-5. I couldn’t get over the beauty of the book of seven short stories about Holocaust survivors.

Good Times

Karen Alkalay-Gut — Sat, 12 May 2012 21:35:32 +0000

Warm wishes for a speedy and complete recovery to President Shimon Peres!

I would have liked to have been in the square tonight. In Rabin Square I mean. But I’ve got to be worried about germs. We took a chance going out to lunch today because Ezi isn’t well, but we had such a great time it couldn’t have been bad for us. The restaurant is called Pat qua and according to my companions, it has gone down hill. As far as I remember it was always kind of average. but there must have been something good about it because we felt an incredible intimacy and warmth.

Not a word was spoken about politics, now that I think about it. Even though all we think about it the political situation and its ramifications, for ourselves and for the world.

Poetry Conference Pictures and Nothing About the Government

Karen Alkalay-Gut — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:19:01 +0000

And continuing in the same vein of speechlessness I let Allison Sommer talk about politics for me.

And me, I continue in my old ways, teaching, researching, babysitting, doing the usual chores, watching television without even having the energy to turn down the sound on the commercials.

First picture from the Poetry Conference on Facebook by Yafit Shahar. Second bunch here.

And now there’s real work to do.

Poetry Conference in the Knesset Today

Karen Alkalay-Gut — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:30:06 +0000

Even though all of the Knesset is totally up in arms over the sudden entrance of Kadima into the government, the conference on poetry was held today. Hundreds of people came to be part of the discussion over the situation of poetry in the country, even though the members of parliament who were supposed to be there either didn’t show up or left after their own speech. I too spoke at this conference, pleading for the revival of PEN, for an office of poet laureate, and the unification of poets of all languages in this country. A lot of good it’s going to do us to talk of unity and understanding and support for the arts and education, we all thought, when in the other rooms around us the politicians are totally disregarding all humanity. How did my mother-in-law put it: “We won’t let them shit on our heads – we will open our mouths!”

Still, still, I can only do what I can do…

Is it Kosher? Does it Stink?

Karen Alkalay-Gut — Tue, 08 May 2012 05:34:44 +0000

don’t tell anyone but my may 7 entry was sabotaged. every time i sat down to write a little summary of the government collapse so it would make sense to me, someone showed up at my door – a neighbor, a sister-in-law, a pedicurist – and i never got to figure out the computations. And then I woke and discovered the government was whole. A sudden secret coalition that will keep the status quo. At the moment I don’t think it was so bad. But we’ll have to see if it’s kosher and/or if it stinks.

The New Jerusalem Review

Karen Alkalay-Gut — Sun, 06 May 2012 19:04:52 +0000

It’s not quite out yet, but the Jerusalem Review cover is on Facebook already

And guess who’s on the cover? Amichai!

I translated this poem long ago. How wonderful to see it again.

And Another Tribute to Amichai

Karen Alkalay-Gut — Sat, 05 May 2012 18:33:42 +0000

What would I have said about Amichai had there been an audience? I would have begun with my first encounter with his poetry. It was almost six years after my second marriage and my sister-in-law told me about a poem that reminded her of me. It was “Late Wedding,” and she had seen it in the papers somewhere. Shortly after, the book, “Sha’at Chessid,” came out and she bought it for me. We were in the U.S. at the time and my Hebrew was evaporating, so I invited my friend,Rachel Talmi, over to help me to understand the poem.>She was very helpful but the only way it could make sense to me as a poem was if I translated it. And so I did.

LATE WEDDING

I sit in the waiting room with other grooms

younger than me by many years. If I lived in olden times

I’d be a prophet. But now I wait quietly
to register my name with my love in the big book

of marriage and respond to questions I can still
answer. I have filled up my life with words,
have gathered in my body enough information to support

the secret services of several countries.

With heavy steps I bear light thoughts:

As in my youth when I bore fate—heavy thoughts on light feet

–almost dancing from so much future.

The pressures of my life bring the date of birth closer
to the date of death, as in history books,
where the pressures of history affixed these two

numbers together next to the name of a dead king,
and only a dash separates them.

I hold onto this dash with all my might.

Like a lifeline, I live by it
with a vow—not to be alone—on my lips,

the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride

the voice of rejoicing children outside Jerusalem
and the towns of Judea.

And I kept going. Gabriel Moked asked me for more translations and published them all together in 10 pages of the Tel Aviv Review, that came out in 1988. And I was hooked. I read poetry with him at the Nassau County Museum, and then the next year was invited to read with him in the Library of Congress. When I returned to Israel we had an evening together at the American Embassy. A few years later I wrote about it.

THE MINISTER OF POETRY

To Yehuda Amichai

We were walking by the Labor Party Office

on Hayarkon Street one night.
The lights were on, and there was a great noise
and you said, “They are choosing
the ministers for the new government.
I should go in and tell them
they need me as Minister of Poetry.”
But instead we went to a reading
down the street at the American Embassy

There was a large crowd there,
and drinks and little sandwiches,
a short speech by a professor
and someone else important
hinting broadly about a shortlist
for the big prize.

Then the evening was over
without a single political word.

But you remain, for me,
from that night on
always
the Minister of Poetry.
We resolved to meet again when we was in New York for the year, and promised to finalize a book together. But then he disappeared, and it took me a long time to discover he had cancelled his year at Baruch College but only when I returned to Israel did I learn he was dying. And then this Dirge emerged on he day he died, September 22, 2000.
Dirge
It looks something like a vague train station,
but very smooth and in a dream.
And they have met here for the first time –
my dear aunt Chasha who died this morning,
and my Minister of Poetry, Yehuda Amichai,
who too has now been freed. They are on their way
to the most special part of heaven,
the site reserved for colossal souls
that incorporate everyone into their lives
and love and love and never deny
the ardor of others.
But their conversation is quite plain, a little mundane.
Perhaps they are talking about the times they never met
at Sloan-Kettering, and how they were born in the same year,
in the same world that vanished into their memories
and how felicitous to make each other’s acquaintance
now, as they are about to broaden the range of their embrace.

A Tribute to Amichai

Karen Alkalay-Gut — Sat, 05 May 2012 07:00:59 +0000

At first I thought it had been a terrible disaster. I skipped the Maghrar festival for this reading in Jerusalem in the Confederation House and there was no audience. Even though my uncertainty about accommodations up north and my inability to get the weekend together, the Maghrar conference promised to be great as always. But talking about Amichai had always been my soft spot – even though it meant going to Jerusalem – so I went. And there was a paltry audience. Not enough to even enter the big hall that had been reserved for the morning. The five poets scheduled to talk couldn’t catch their breath at that moment. We were about to leave and then Hagit Grossman and I suddenly insisted that we had come to praise Amichai and we would do it, no matter how small the audience. So we sat in the small room, and began to talk, and gradually forgot where we were, forgot everything else but the magnificent poetry. And that was beautiful – a really intense tribute.

Ronny Sommek

Karen Alkalay-Gut — Thu, 03 May 2012 18:44:04 +0000

Ronny Sommek is running with Yair Lapid! We’re going to have education for a change! The need is so desperate I can’t begin to describe it. And the fact that my grandchildren are in the school system makes it all too apparent in the beginning stages as well as on the later stages.