Still very shook up by the poetry festival (i don’t know why – maybe because the festival was dominated by the right and it was a new world for me in literature. For example, someone made a point that it was the right wing poets who used Hebrew properly and the left was characterized by sloppy, unattractive language.  Everyone applauded)  Maybe it was the absence of food at the festival, making traveling in the intense heat imperative that got to me, or the fact that the rooms were so limited in time that we poets were forced to sit in the lobby for hours on end (without food) unable to prepare our presentations properly.  If it not been so hot, we would probably have managed alternatives.  Nevertheless, the result was strangely exhausting.

I could not have been alone wondering how the people in tents in Gaza are surviving in the heat.  if at all.  that pain is always in my heart.

ANYWAY we were still suffering the effects the day after when we met friends at PARKER, a bar in the forest in Hertzlia.  And suddenly the freedom – the openness, humor, generosity, inclusiveness – released me.  

It was not because of our friends:  our friends are wonderful, but no more exciting and inclusive than the poets we sat with for hours on end in the hall waiting for our panels.

I’m sure that had the lovely ladies who were doing the physical organizing of the conference would have loved to sit and chat with us, but were overstressed by the physical limitations of the organization.  

in any case, in Tel Aviv I felt free.  Strangely enough, I also felt comfortable with the people of Metula, who came to Jerusalem for some of the sessions, and reminded me of the discussions we had in Metula, before the war forced everyone to evaculate.   Let us pray that we will be able to go back to Metula next year – and open up the concept of Israeli poetry to everyone – to the different languages, nationalities, and ages.  Poetry should be for everyone, and should be experienced, not just talked about.