Voices Israel Poetry

On June 30th, twenty seven Voices members from all over Israel packed into Susan Rosenberg's Haifa apartment for a day long poetry workshop. The attendance was much larger than previous years and included a good number of bright new faces.  Judging by the comments made by participants, this was one of the most successful workshops ever.

Six interesting presentations were given by Wendy Blumfield, Johnmichael Simon, Michael Dickel, Ada Aharoni, Sara Avital and Mike Scheidemann. After each presentation all present wrote a spontaneous poem inspired by that subject.  The best poems will be published in a chapbook to commemorate the event. 

The following poem was written by one of the participants after the workshop:

Workshop

Each year I attend these workshops
feast on the creative atmosphere
lick my lips on the quips
enthuse with every muse

I gasp anew at the growing numbers
of earnest graying scribbling members
some with sonnet sounding names
enjoying contributions, intrusions, jokes
from new voices, younger folk

But most of all, I love the passion
verve and sense of pressing mission
the energy with which this thirsting bunch
filled with zeal for poetic nutrition
attacks the lunch

Over 40 poets and their guests crowded into the Institute Français in Tel Aviv on June 11th for an evening of readings from the 2009 Voices Israel anthology.  Special guest was Seymour Mayne, distinguished poet from Ottowa, Canada who gave a reading from several of his books and an entertaining talk.

Preamble by Seymour Mayne - Guest Poet

The following poems represent a small sample of those read during the evening. Unfortunately due to technical limitations we are not able to present all the readings.

Compassion by Michael Dickel

I’ve never been to the fjords, the tall cliffs looming.
Nor have I seen the glacial cliffs spawning icebergs
into the sea. Except in film. Yet I know these places.

How do we get from the water to the forests?
We all know the deep meaning of icebergs and
the difficulty of scaling cliffs without proper equipment.

A life dodging icebergs and crashing into cliffs is not
how we want to dream our children into being.
A person who grew up between the gavel and the sound block

seeks to soften the blows of life for her child. But it is just as possible
to drown in heart’s blood as to smother under the crushing blow,
to chase a daughter into steep rock as to siren-sing a son to hidden ice.

When we try to counter judgment, too much love may swallow us.
Love and judgment birth compassion from their wild affair.
Compassion pours joy into the world at the source of creation.

How do we cut our children out of our own skin and survive?
My daughter asked me to walk across campus with her
to her voice lessons. Such a gift of time together, how do I

let go and watch her walk away? When do I say goodbye?
How do you birth a child from your most sacred body
and set that being free? You wrote to me asking if I wanted

you and your son to join me because “we speak Hebrew.”
Such a gift of language, you and he grammatically joined.
Let our children scale cliffs and dodge icebergs.

Poetry group by Thilde Fox

What brings them
week after week
sharpening words
balancing lines
twisting chalk and cheese
as if they could really add
new images to our memories?
They read their offerings
and wait for a frown
a nod
a smile
or one moment of shared awe
that brings them back
week after week.

In the Foothills of Jerusalem by Ezra Ben-Meir

I.
Last night
I looked across to a village on the hill
Counted lights, one, ten, hundreds,
Dark black sky above
Darker earth below
And knew, that in the morning,
As light slowly rises behind the
Village and dots of incandescence disappear
In this idyll of the sleeping hours.
I could not see their kitchens of labor,
Bedrooms, carpets baring threads,
Nor the tired muscles of the day before.
Even as night sleeps
Life lurks eagerly and hungrily
Resting awhile
At the foothills of Jerusalem.

II.
Outside, trees sway under burdens of wind
Leaves break the rhythm
Each a silhouette
To the rising lights.
Across, the village loses its speckles
Clouds form, edges gold
And sweeps of silence slowly
hue
As reds and browns hang lazily above
Denying the haste and fury on the ground.
All that remains for the night to flee-
The chattering of birds
To chase the night away
As cavalcades begin to roar
Up the hills to Jerusalem

III.
I look across to a village on a hill.
Whitened walls, roofs of red
Stand stolid yet apart
From the earthy browns beneath.
Only thoughts and memories stay
During the slow sunrise
In the foothills of Jerusalem.

Blinkers In The Super-Pharm by Birgit Talmon

It's 'socks up'
As I zigzag
The perfumed lanes
Eyes firmly fixed
On the toes of my shoes.

The in-names
All blend into
One indistinct scent
- Luring.

A slightest side glance
Spells the eye contact
That'll get foxy vendors
Going with their:
'Madam,
This is exactly
What you need,
Overnight
It'll smooth and soothe
Your complexion
Lift those tired lines'.

I adjust my blinkers
As I head for all I need:
The aspirin that will soothe
And then the lift
That will bring me home
Sweet home.

Teddy Bears for Guns by Ada Aharoni

My man of the year
Is the wonderful, wise one
Who sat himself in the midst
Of the West with a huge box
Of chubby Teddy Bears
On New Year's Day,
Attracting an endless
Queue of cheering kids -
Holding guns

He playfully showed
With a smile and a wink
And a Teddy Bear hug -
It could be the beginning
Of a honey-laden decade
In a brave new world

By wisely, joyfully trading
Guns
For Teddy Bears.

Stealing a Line by Rifkah Goldberg

Never borrowed a line before
But a world away
Seems Paul Auster
Unwittingly wrote about me

His “consolation of colour”
Is the story of my life
Through all my searchings
Color has always been there

Since my earliest days
I have been asking
How to communicate the colour
Persisting through joy and gloom

To pass on the comfort
Of a burning yellow sunshade
Flowers in unlikely blues
Combined with an infinity of greens

Can I open up the world’s eyes
To the balm of colour
Patiently taking me by the hand
Across the dark inner valley of my soul?

Dead Nature by Ira Director

or nature morte
(as the French would say)
something that was
and still is

but not quite

like the bowl of cherries
with small stones inside

that I couldn’t touch
through the paint

or that cricket
that the cat brought

with almost
all its legs

but no voice

or the small rabbit, the dog
laid on the steps

still soft and warm

but for only a few
more minutes

or a mother
with small stones
on her eyes

Yekke by Tirza Heidingsfeld

In the late evening
My father sits in his armchair reading
His head propped with one hand
His other hand turning the pages
Of his gemorre
Of his world history
Of his civilisation
Of his siddur
Of his Tosefos
Of his letters of Ben-Gurion to his wife
Of his Frankfurter gemeinde
Of his Rambam
Of his ...
My father sits in his armchair
Reading

In the late evening
My father sits in his armchair reading
In Frankfurt
In Montreux
In Sydney
In Jerusalem
My father sits in his armchair reading

My father sits in his armchair reading
It is his Yahrzeit
I see him now
In his favourite blue jacket
I look at him now
Engrossed in his book
Next to me always
The warmth of him warming the room
His smile twinkling the room
The room he did not sit in
Before

In the late evening
My father sits in his armchair reading

Thanks to Michael Dickel for sending these photos that he took at the anthology reading evening:

The following call for submissions was received from:
Alan D. Abbey
Internet Director
Shalom Hartman Institute
Jerusalem, Israel
http://hartman.org.il
blog: http://hartmaninstitute.wordpress.com

Dear All,
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Scribblers on the Roof was born out of a need for a dedicated place for both established and emerging writers of fiction and poetry with Jewish themes to submit their work. While there are some wonderful Jewish publications that have small sections for for creative writing they are few and far between and they are not dedicated solely to the craft of poetry and prose.

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