blog, my life in tel aviv, poetry

it is a truth university acknowledged that our lives in the epidemic have centered around food.  In Israel, we’re beginning to smell freedom, and that prospect for many has just added to our sense of confusion.  The other day I heard someone say: “The heart says – restaurant.  The head says – take-away.  The pocket says – toast.  

The possible opening of opportunities is wonderful for some, frightening for others, terrible for still others.  Mothers whose children were sent back to school and are now in quarantine are to me at the top of the list.

And we just had a take-away from Akiko… “Do you have a Green Card?” she asked.  “Wonderful!  Come in, sit down.”  She knows how much I love watching every process of the making of sushi, but we’re not safe yet, so we couldn’t bring ourselves to sit at the counter.   Eating sushi at our kitchen table I kept thinking how much I would rather have had toast…

 

march 11, 2021 – take-away Read Post »

blog, my life in tel aviv, poetry, ,

restaurants – finally eating food not from my kitchen! cafes – crazy, a place to meet! schools – kids no longer wasting their minds! flights – beginning again!  all very wonderful!  But because Ezi’s getting treatment so his lymphoma doesn’t come back, he’s failed his serology test and has to stay protected.  he’s staying away from others, and I’m careful not to transfer anything to him.  And yet, we zoom to be doing fine.  I’m even seeing some friends for lunch tomorrow, very carefully, and introducing my wonderful friends, Toi Derricote and Alicia Ostriker, at a zoom meeting in the afternoon.  Want to come? Here’s the zoom: “We Feel Now a Largeness Coming”:
Black Women Poets in America. I’m pretty excited about this and hope you are too. 

 

march 7, 2021 – we’re opening up – but not for me Read Post »

blog, my life in tel aviv, poetry, ,

i was sure it would be out for Passover, and I’d be able to send the mobi file to friends for the fun of comparing the stories of Passover with the reality of Egypt and the slaves and the Jews.  I spent at least 2 days editing it so the pictures align with the text.  but this afternoon I was informed that it all came out a mess and I have to start over and a kindle book would be impossible.  it’s such a fun book and to me so enlightening I’m really broken-hearted.  And I have a ton of paperwork from the IAWE to take care of before I leave.  But never mind – I’ll give you a poem in advance:

 

 

Footstool

 

See how each slave is unique –

But Sudanese, Philistinian, or Jew

they’re all tied in one unyielding queue

and you know they’ve been brought

from all over the world,

together on one footstool

under the heel of the Pharaoh

who will never let

these people go

a poem in advance:

 

march 7, 2021 – Egypt: an israelite returns, editing Read Post »

blog, my life in tel aviv, poetry

In time for Passover, I’m going to publish a little poetry book about Egypt.  Here’s a little poem and picture you may like.

Footstool

 

 

 

 

 

Look at how each slave is unique

Sure, they’re all tied in one queue

but you know they’ve been captured

from all over the world,

all on one footstool

under the heel of the Pharoah

who will never let

these people go

march 5, 2021 – planning a book on Egypt Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, poetry,

this is only a draft, but something is going on with the internet and the computer, so i’m saving it here.  enjoy:

Soap opera

Lately I’ve been watching the washing machine.

It’s a scream the way one sock can get stuck to the door

As if it’s trying to escape, and the rest of the batch

Keeps trying to pull it back, back to conventional cleanliness.

Or are the working out how they can join the single hero

And free themselves from the rolling torture?

 

Eventually it loses, as do all the single individuals who

Only to live their life in a world as solitary souls

And I watch, knowing it will fail, and everything in a minute

Will go to the dryer.  And I will turn off the washer

And move to a more banal program on television.

february 22, 2021 – washing machine Read Post »

blog, my life in tel aviv, poetry

Because I promised to read a poem by Rivka on her birthday next week, i decided to translate a few of them.  When i finished this draft, I began to cry.  what do you think?

There is a time

When more quietly than quiet the poem resides.

Where is the poem?

Consumed in the fires

Dumbfounded by hunger

In the ghastly rasp of a bullet

In the bloody scream of terror

Frozen in icy snow

Where is the poem?

In memory.

february 4, 2021 – Rivka bassman’s birthday party and a poem Read Post »

blog, my life in tel aviv, poetry

 Since i haven’t put up any events in a year and haven’t even looked at my event page since I set up this site,  I should start sharing the next week with you.

Let’s see, tomorrow at the SELI conference  I’ve got 5 minutes to explain about the poetry boom on zoom.

then on the 13th we’re probably having a Valentines’ zoom with every one reading love poems – more info coming as soon as we can get ourselves to get along…

then on the 14th at five in the afternoon  there’s a birthday party for Rivka Bassman in Yiddish

then on the 16th Sabine Hunyh and I are doing an afternoon on the book “Survivre son histoire/Surviving her story” for an event at Oxford University and the University of Michigan.  You can register here 

january 31, 2021 – what’s coming up Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv, poetry, , , ,

The New York Times inspired me to finally write about this

when I saw the inauguration last week I kept myself from crying – the way poetry was part of the message of models of faith for the future.  Models FOR faith, not in faith.  HOW to believe in the future and how to be the kind of people that could make it happen.  

The poetry itself seemed more spoken word than poetry to me, but Amanda Gorman did an amazing job in fulfilling the hope that we can change our lives, the direction of our politics.  And Biden’s reinforcement of that kind of belief in his quotation from Heaney’s poetry, something that was characteristic of empathic presidents before him – from Kennedy to Clinton to Biden, made me believe. 

And it made me see the contrasts between our leadership in Israel and the hope for the future in the U.S. government.   When Shimon Peres would quote a line from poetry, you knew he read the poem and chose it himself.  When Bibi – or any of the other politicians in the country – quote a poem, you know they’ve had some speechwriter who had combed the web for famous sayings…  

Thanks to Linda Streit for pointing out this op-ed to me

Please let us hear more encouraging words that shape and enable a better society in the future.

january 24, 2021 – politics and poetry Read Post »