Amit Gur visited me for the first time a few weeks ago and inspired in me great warmth and admiration. I poured as many books as I had copies of into his backpack, and now he has put together an amazing evening on saturday night at 9, even with my poems. click here to register
march 11, 2021 – international women’s week – clothes Read Post »
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 »
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 »
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:
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 »
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.
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
