Yona Wallach
Let the words
Let the words work on you
let them theyll be free
theyll enter you theyll come inside
makers of forms upon forms
theyll start up in you that same experience
let the words act on you
do with you as they wish
making forms new in the word
they make of the thing yours
the same thing exactly
because they are the thing theyll make
really understand theyll liven up
for you that experience and its interpretation thats like nature
becaue they are nature and not an invention
and not a discovery but real nature
theyll make nature a thing in you
like giving a kind of life to the word
let the words do to you
Translated by Linda Zisquit
Yona Wallach born in Israel in 1944, died in Kiryat Ono in 1985. Her reputation as a leading avant garde poet was well-established by her death. Her poetry often stirred controversy due to its outspoken nature and daring metaphors.
Harold Schimmel
All the Words
All the words Ive not
yet said in my thirty-two years
Ill now say. Ill jump in,
like a young porcupine
with the whole of my language.
Dont leave me yet, my friend.
Like a midday offering
to an old tongue
Ill proffer myself
as a sweet-smelling
scent Ill ascend, perhaps
on high.
Translated by Peter Cole
Harold Schimmel was born in 1935 in New Jersey and settled in Jerusalem in 1962. He began writing in Hebrew in 1967 and has published several collections of poetry in Hebrew, of which the latest is Nohah ("Facing,")1995. He has translated poetry of Yehuda Amichai, Avoth Yeshurun, and other modern Hebrew poets into English.
Robert Friend
The Test
But was the language alive?
Bialik wished he knew,
thoughtfully slapped a child.
Was the pain Hebrew?
Knowledge was not denied.
The child proved unforgiving.
"Hamor" (donkey) he cried,
and proved the language living.
Robert Friend, born in Brooklyn, has lived in Israel since 1950. A poet and translator of such Hebrew poets as Leah Goldberg and Gabriel Priel, he taught American and English literature at the Hebrew University for over 30 years. His latest book, "In the Next Room," Menard Press, London, 1996, contains his most recent poems, as well as selections from his seven previous collections.
Amir Or
Language Says
Language says:before language
there stands a language. Language is tainted
traces from yonder.
Language says:listen now.
You listen: there has been an
echo.
Take silence and try to be silent.
Take words and try to speak;
Beyond language, language is a wound
from which the world flows and flows.
Language says:Is, Is not, Is,
Is not. Language says:lets speak you,
lets touch you, lets say
you have said.
Translated by Irit Sela
Amir Or was born in Tel Aviv in 1956 and studied classics at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. A poet and essayist, he translates from ancient Greek, Latin and English into Hebrew. He is co-editor of Helicon, a journal of contemporary Hebrew poetry. He has published four collections of his own poetry.
Salman Masalha
I Write Hebrew
I write in the Hebrew language
which is not my mother tongue, to
lose myself in the world. He who doesnt
get lost, will never find the whole.
Because everyone has the same
toes. Left big toe
by right heel.
And sometimes I write Hebrew
to cool the blood that spurts
endlessly from my heart. Its always like that.
There are many treasures
in the coffer Ihave built in my chest.
But the colours of the night that was spread
over exposed walls, peel
without ever knowing what
all this wonder is.
And I write Hebrew, to
get lost in my words, and also to find
a bit of interest for my footsteps.
Ihave not stopped walking. Many paths
have Itravelled. Engraved by my hands.
Ishall take my feet in hand
and meet many people. And make them all
my friends. Who is foreign?Who far, who near?
There is no strangeness in the ways of the world.
Because strangeness, mostly,
lies in mans heart.
Translated by Vivian Eden
Salman Masalha, born in the Druze town of Mgar in Central Galilee in 1953, studied Arabic Literature at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He has published three books of poetry as well as works of criticism and translation in both Hebrew and Arabic. He lives in Jerusalem.
Agi Mishol
In My Still Body
In my still body
stillness meets itself
and the thoughts in vain
flaunt the frills of words,
in vain pour themselves
into vessels of speech
trapping my poeticism.
For the beam of sight that traverses me
observes them too
and the tubes of blues in my womb
improvise longing
and love is a night bulb
in a corridor
against fear
in the dark.
Translated by Tsippi Keller
Agi Mishol, was born in 1947 and studied literature at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. She has published six book of poetry and teaches at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and in high school. She translates esoteric books and lives on moshav Kfar Mordechai.
Arnon Levy
You Must
Duplicate copy photograph record
translate
store in a data base
broadcast and receive
in any way or by any means
electronic, optical or mechanical
or other -
any part of the material.
Make commercial use
of any kind.
Fill the holes of silence
seal the cracks of absence.
I Forgot
I forgot the wisdom
of the poem is silent wisdom
the space
between letter and letter
a shutter
opening up,
closing,
blocking;
I forgot.
Translated by Aloma Halter
Arnon Levy was born in Jerusalem in 1975. He has published poems in various journals and literary magazines and writes poetry criticism. In 1995 he participated in a seminar of young poets at the Rotterdam Poetry Festival.
Sharon Ahsse
Close-up
I have to write of you, like a child
that must give names to the darkness -
to stop my shattering into loneliness
my face composing what is hanging in the air,
I have to say many azure words
to free you from the stone
in which we are confined.
Even if the clouds are voiceless,
their weight draws me down to the grass, to the goldfish
that grew pale in the sun,
close to the face of an ant I see
her, like us, caught up in a sort of feistiness
gathering from hand
to mouth.
And the body is all caverns, deep sand castles
that rose up, once, like a storm from the void, when you came.
Translated by Aloma Halter
Sharon Ahsse, was born in Ramat Gan in 1966. Her book of poetry, "The Mountain Mother is Gone" will appear in 1997. She represented Israel at the Rotterdam Poetry Festival in 1996, and is currently completing her MA in religious studies.
Zali Gurevitch
from Hevel ("The Book of the Voice")
In my nakedness (the body, the nails
the eyes
to see
the
voice
is naked
Ive nothing
on me
but speech
speak (I
say)
to myself
as though language
is
your only
clothing
"the desire to speak"
(in Hebrew
Ben-Yehuda wrote
not with frantic lips
nor
spittle
when you lie down
and when you rise
when you sit at home
and when you set out
bite
with its hard
tooth
the flesh
of every word
that gives
Translated by Gabriel Levin
Zali Gurevitch was born in Israel in 1949. He has published four volumes of poetry, of which the latest is Hevel ("The Book of the Voice.") He has translated several modern American poets into Hebrew and he lectures in the Department of Sociology and Anthopology at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
Ronny Someck
The Red Catalogue of the Word Sunset
A French poet sees the sun turning red
and presses the colour of wine from cloudgrapes.
An English poet compares it to a rose
and the Hebrew, to blood.
Oh my country, a land sinking cannibal lips in the sunsets
virginal neck
the oars of fear are sewn to the length of my arms
and I, in the ark of my life, row like Noah
towards Ararat.
Translated by Vivian Eden
Ronny Someck was born in Baghdad in 1951 and emigrated to Israel as a child. He has published seven collections of poems of which the most recent is "Rice Paradise," 1996. He was the recipient of the Prime Ministers Prize in 1989.