Always with His Heart

While cynics insist that Valentine’s Day is vastly overrated, newspapers like  Britain’s  The  Telegraph have treated readers  to  a  selection  of  world-class verse to celebrate.                                                                                   .

Israel’s own day of love is marked in the late summer on Tu B’Av so I’ve entered the present fun with  an offbeat contribution from an unusual source.

Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Israel’s only  Nobel literary laureate, immigrated from Galicia to Palestine in 1908 and returned to Europe for some years before going back to live in Jerusalem until his death in 1970.

He was strictly devout and his novels and short stories reflect the traditions and attitudes of the East European shtetl. I suggeat the piece I have chosen exemplifies why he was praised especially for the "peculiar tenderness and beauty"  of his work.

As a short story of less than 850 words, I must suppose that today it would be described as a ‘flash’. But I have chosen to use it here as it is deeply lyrical and so may also  be classed as an allegorical prose-poem.

With My Heart is from the short-story collection, A Dwelling Place of My People, Sixteen Stories of the Chassidim, translated from Hebrew into English by Rabbi J. Weinberg and H. Russell (Scottish Academic Press 1983).

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“With My Heart”

“I wanted to sing a song to the Shulamite, the most lovely maiden because I love the Shulamite more than all the daughters of the people; and now because the birthday of the Shulamite is near I said to myself, ‘I shall make a song and bind it up in a string of rhymes’ for that is what the poets do with their songs.

“So I went to the rhymes and said to them, ‘Please listen, rhymes; behold I am composing a song for the Shulamite, the most lovely maiden, and I come to you in order that you will give me two or three rhymes for the song which I am making for her birthday’.

“And the rhymes answered and said to me, ‘It is a good thing that you want to do, but go and bring us words and we shall give you the rhymes, according to your heart’s desire we will give you rhymes.’ I went to the words and I said to them, ‘I dearly wished to compose a song for the Shulamite, and I went to the rhymes in order that they would give me a few rhymes, and the rhymes said to me, ‘Go and bring us words and we will give you rhymes'. Now behold I come to you for the loan of words, and now lend me words for the song that I want to compose for the birthday of the Shulamite.’

“And the words listened and said: ‘The advice which the rhymes gave you was good, because without a word there is nothing. What is the most important of all is ourselves, the words; without words the thing is meaningless. So go and come to the head; perhaps it will give you an idea, and we will give you words, and you will come with the words to the rhymes and they will give you rhymes, and you will bind the words to the rhymes and compose the song to that Shulamite on her birthday’.

“So I went to the head and recounted everything, and he did not want to come with me. He said it was not proper for a man to compose songs. So what then? But I did not let him go, and I pleaded with him shamelessly until he agreed to go with me to one of the ideas in order to be with me when I came to the words and rhymes to compose the song for the Shulamite, the most lovely maiden. And we went, and we came to the idea and found him seated with wise and aged ones, and I said to the idea:

“’Behold the birthday of the Shulamite is near, and now I want to compose a song for the Shulamite. I went to the rhymes, and to the words, and they sent me to the head to speak for me before you when I come to make the song. So now please come with me to the words, and the rhymes; please arise, O idea, and come with me.’

“The idea answered and said, ‘Should I leave my place with the aged and the wise and go wandering with words and rhymes?’ The idea did not want to come with me to go to the words and the rhymes in order that the words would give me words and the rhymes give me rhymes for the song which I wanted to compose for the Shulamite, the loveliest maiden, whom I love.

“And I went out from before the idea, and I was very sad because my desire was to compose a song for the Shulamite on her birthday, and the idea would not come with me to the words and to the rhymes in order that I might make the song. And my heart found me and saw that I was sad, and my heart said to me, ‘Why are you sad?’ and I told my heart that I had gone to the rhymes and they sent me to the words, and the words sent me to the idea, and the idea sent me away empty and did not go with me, and indeed I wanted to compose a song for the Shulamite, the lovely maiden, for her birthday.

“’Now, how can I compose the song, and how can I return to the words and rhymes, if the idea is not with me?’ And my heart saw and said, ‘I shall be in your mouth, and you will compose a song for the Shulamite, loveliest of maidens, because I love the Shulamite and your songs.’

“While he was speaking he touched my mouth, and I composed the song for the Shulamite, the beautiful maiden, on her birthday; a song — which I had never sung till then, with an idea, and words, and rhymes — because my heart was with me and in my mouth.”

** The translators suggest that according to sources, the word ‘Shulamite’  may be a feminine form of Solomon.

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© Natalie Wood (12 February 2016)

Another Poet. But This One’s King!

I’ve been astounded to discover that modern Israeli high school students know little or nothing of their country’s major poets. This surely leaves a gaping and distressing hole in their education.

After all, Chaim Nachman Bailik’s  children’s Chanucah poem prompted the name of the 2008-2009 war while it’s said that Yehuda Amichai is the most translated Hebrew poet since King David. What’s more, there can be no argument about the origins of Amichai’s majestic verse.

So we’ve been given an enormous treat with the publication of what is described as the largest-ever English-language collection of Amichai’s work.

The former Ludwig Pfeuffer fled with his family from Nazi Germany to Mandate Palestine and  explained during an interview with the Paris Review how the chance discovery of a Faber anthology of modern verse caused him to think seriously about writing poetry. This, he said, was how the likes of Thomas, Eliot and Auden became important to him and I say, doubtless how he eventually forged a strong bond with English poet laureate Ted Hughes who translated some of his work.

It must be an unsought tribute to editor Professor Robert Alter and his translators that the  publication of this collection  has itself produced a wealth of polished criticism and background feature material. I’ve had an absorbing few hours reading everything!

I was going to end here, simply by quoting below one of Amichai’s best known and beloved pieces, an ironic version of the El Malei Rachamim memorial prayer usually recited at funerals and on solemn religious holidays.

But then I came across a blog written by young  US composer, Mohammed  Fairouz who quotes the poem in Hebrew and English, giving readers English language notes explaining the original Hebrew prayer and Amichai’s wry version of it. This has been the best treat of all!

 

“God Full Of Mercy

  “God-Full-of-Mercy, the prayer for the dead.
If God was not full of mercy,
Mercy would have been in the world,
Not just in Him.
I, who plucked flowers in the hills
And looked down into all the valleys,
I, who brought corpses down from the hills,
Can tell you that the world is empty of mercy.
I, who was King of Salt at the seashore,
Who stood without a decision at my window,
Who counted the steps of angels,
Whose heart lifted weights of anguish
In the horrible contests.

“I, who use only a small part
Of the words in the dictionary.

“I, who must decipher riddles
I don't want to decipher,
Know that if not for the God-full-of-mercy
There would be mercy in the world,
Not just in Him.”

(Translated from the Hebrew by Barbara and Benjamin Harshav)

** The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai edited by Professor Robert Alter, is published in hardback ($24.47; £16.87; NIS 95.01 ) and Kindle ($16.99; £11.71; NIS 65.97)

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© Natalie Wood (06 February 2016)

Of Great Wisdom and Hot Wine!

A public reading of favourite poems invariably says as much about the participants as the authors and the works they choose.

Certainly, there were equal parts of jollity and gravity when members of ESRA Karmiel met for  an evening of  sharing favourite verses accompanied by a cup – or two! – of long-brewed hot punch.

Authors read ranged from Lord Byron to Edward Thomas and from Pam Ayres to T S Eliot.

Introducing one of my own favourites, I mentioned that the Irish Nobel laureate, William Butler Yeats was close friends with the Bengali polymath, Rabindranath Tagore who became the first non-European also to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

A great friend of the international Jewish community and a strong supporter of Zionism, Tagore was held in such esteem that his death in 1941  aged 80 was reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency alongside its accounts of the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Nazi-held Poland.

His intellectual friendship and conversations with Albert Einstein are well-recorded. However, less well-known is that his support was rewarded with the naming of a street after him in Ramat Aviv, near the University of Tel Aviv, Israel.

Indian-Jewish scholar, Navras Jaat Aafreedi has noted that the Anglo-Jewish painter, Sir William Rothenstein is credited with introducing Tagore to the West and that in turn,  Tagore dedicated his prize-winning collection of poems, Gitanjali to Rothenstein.

I close here with an English translated excerpt from Gitanjali included on the School of Wisdom website:

“Little Flute

“Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail
vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.
This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales,
and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.
At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in
joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.
Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine.
Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill”.

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© Natalie Wood (13January 2016)

It's Never, Ever, 'All Over'.

Bob Dylan's song, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, prompted the theme of veteran US writer Joyce Carol Oates's most noted short story, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

The lyrics are difficult. Some critics argue that they are strongly influenced by the symbolist poet, Arthur Rimbaud while lines like "take what you have gathered from coincidence" reflect the I Ching philosophy which uses a type of divination called cleromancy and states that coincidence represents more than mere chance. This in turn produces apparently random numbers. 

Oates's story has prompted as much debate as Dylan's song, partly because of her description of the graffiti of rough doodles and  random numbering adorning the villain's gold-painted, open-top car. 

"'Now, these numbers are a secret code, honey," Arnold Friend explained. He read off the numbers 33, 19, 17 ...'" 

Other scholars say the numerals allude to several biblical passages, especially Judges 19:17 in the Hebrew bible. This verse appears in the story about a man who tries to prevent a male guest from being sodomised by offering his daughter and the guest's concubine in their place. The concubine is gang-raped throughout the night, collapses, then dies. Then as the story unfolds, we learn that the incident causes a  civil war with mass slaughter on both sides.

My own feeling is that while Oates is an atheist, that she may also be acutely aware of the rabbinical dictum of there being no such thing as coincidence; that everything happens for a reason. 

After all, she is from a part-Jewish background and was very close to her paternal grandmother, Blanche Woodside who concealed her heritage after her own father killed himself. It seems self-evident to me that Oates drew on this link via Dylan's music and also through her villain, 'Friend', who bears a common Jewish surname. 

Elsewhere, Oates uses parts of her grandmother's life story in her novel, The Gravedigger's Daughter. Most recently, the final tale in her new short-story collection, The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror, refers to the frequent use of 'coincidence' as a popular plot device in 19th century fictional literature.

   

You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last

But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast

Yonder stands your orphan with his gun

Crying like a fire in the sun

Look out the saints are comin’ through

And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense

Take what you have gathered from coincidence

The empty-handed painter from your streets

Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets

This sky, too, is folding under you

And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home

All your reindeer armies, are all going home

The lover who just walked out your door

Has taken all his blankets from the floor

The carpet, too, is moving under you

And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you

Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you

The vagabond who’s rapping at your door

Is standing in the clothes that you once wore

Strike another match, go start anew

And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music

© Natalie Wood (20 December 2015)

Poetry with Punch

When I opened this blog in April last year, I mused on the nature of poetry, and suggested that a poem is more than its base material; that like its author it has a soul – a ‘divine spark’ - that helps to lift it beyond the ordinary.

Now English language poetry lovers in the Galilee will have the chance to debate what makes a popular poem great when we meet for an evening of ‘Poetry with Punch'.

At the event, under the aegis of ESRA KARMIEL, participants will take turns to read a couple of beloved poems by favourite authors and then to explain the reasoning behind their selection.


The event, to be held in a private home, is open to a maximum of 21 readers so those wishing to attend should pre-register to help the organisers arrange seating and refreshments which are to include snacks and hot punch.

Registration: sharonmayer4@gmail.com


Date: Tuesday 05 January 2016


Time: 7.15 p.m. for 7.30 p.m

Venue: Private home in Ramat Rabin, Karmiel


Entrance: NIS 15; NIS 10 (ESRA/KESC members)


© Natalie Wood (18 December 2015)

Then – and Now

(“Generation after generation reads the same words and says: ‘Was that then or is that now’?” – Rabbi Lord Sacks)

 

Then and Now

 

And it came to pass that Fayez

Father of Hamdia heeded the deeds

of our shared forebear, Avraham

and welcomed weary strangers inside his home.

 

“’Jew, Jew, Jew! We’ll stone you!

Burn you! Destroy you’!”

 

As all around a baying mob of

neighbours threw rocks and fire,

scorching holy Hebrew prayer boxes

with searing words of hate, Fayez,

a Palestinian Arab, gave five angels

from the States water, time, refuge

so they may learn that ‘Allah’ – also

named ‘Hashem’ – is great and would

help them find their way to where

our noble patriarchs lie at their eternal rest.

 

“I’m no hero”, said unassuming Fayez.

“I did what needed to be done. We are

all human first and foremost. That's how

everyone should behave. We have no problems

with the Israelis and we don't want to have any."

 

But even as he proffered kindness,

offered Jews universal words of comfort

beneath his roof, the hate outside did not abate.

 

“‘Jew, Jew, Jew’! We’ll stone you!

Burn you! Destroy you’!”

 

Dear God of all our warring nations,

please keep Fayez Father of Hamdia quite safe!

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© Natalie Wood (08 December 2015)

‘Time for You and Time for Me’

 

Cake

 

“Cake – let’s have cake”,

you said. The same rotund vowels

that robed us in a swish of velvet

drapes drawn swiftly against

an early darkened afternoon,

also bathed us in scents of

mixed sweet spice, citrus,

plumped fruits – and sugar so

sticky-black it may have passed for

road tar in the thickening gloom.

 

 

“Toast perhaps?” As I asked, my

tongue lingered long on fancied

butter spreading, sliding, oozing

on a plate – like the skittish soap suds

that slithered off Gran’s hallowed

door-step, down, deep down the

nearest grate.

 

“No. Cake, please”, you said,

the tips of your blunt-nailed fingers

scarcely grazing mine. “Times like

this - of joy – even the tremulous

joy of sorrow – are best toasted

with cake, tea. Sometimes wine”.

 

Then there were flowers. And

after an elaborate search behind

your chair, you revealed a riot of

quite unreasonable, unseasonal,

bare-faced colour.

 

“These  unblushing, brazen

blooms”, I said, “seem careless

of their pedigree. Are they not

aware that good breeding requires

that they close their puckered

mouths in public?”

 

“But they wish to toast you”,

you said, “with cake. Feed

them. Now”.

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© Natalie Wood (06 December 2015)