Article
Editorial: 1 December, 2003
January 18, 2006
Ben Yitzhak’s biblical inspiration, his rhyme, rhythm and cadences taken from the Scripture, is something he shares with {id="3167" title="Ella Bat-Tsion"} and {id="3169" title="Israel Har"}, Israel’s two other featured poets this quarter. Their poetry, like Ben Yitzhak’s, is not always transparent or even comprehensible. Yet the private and mysterious has its own value, als Ella Bat-Tsion writes in {id="3386" title="I waited with endless patience"}:
something was made known to me, only for me
there is something just for me
not all is lost
The two new South-African poets of the quarter, {id="5385" title="Seitlhamo Motsapi"} and {id="5378" title="Karen Press"}, exemplify the great diversity of peoples and cultures existing in their country. Whereas Motsapi is known for his “pan-Africanist militancy, romantic spirituality, and a scathing attack on neo-colonialism”, his poems talking of “mount zion”, “Babylon” and “banging munition”, Press’s frame of reference rather includes urbane elemens such as Rodchenko, cappuccino, Horowitz, the Languedoc and Bruce Chatwin.
Finally, 22 year old {id="972" title="Shuijing Zhulian"}, our youngest poet of the quarter by a long way, is representative of a new alternative literary scene in China, a scene that primarily finds its voice on the internet rather than through the regular – controlled and constrained – channels of literary expression. Preoccupied with love, lust and a certain existential angst, her poems are written in a plain, matter of fact style devoid of literary embellishments. “him and I: love at first sight/ due to excess yearning/ this slice of romance only lasted a day and a twilight”, she writes in {id="1097" title="Love at first sight"}. In the words of our Chinese editor: “Shuijing walks that fine line between ironical provocation and the effort to push a little at the uncertainties of contemporary being.”
Eleven published poems, followed by a descent into silence. In spite – or perhaps because – of his unprolific literary output, Avraham Ben Yitzhak has become a legend in the history of Hebrew poetry, considered by many as “a figure of exemplary purity, perhaps the harbinger of Hebrew modernism in verse”. Ben Yitzhak is one of three new Israeli poets this quarter on PIW, represented here with three poems from his small but awe-inspiring oeuvre.
“ ‘Literature’ as such didn’t interest him,” {id="3170" title="Lea Goldberg"}, another distinguished Israeli poet, wrote on {id="3161" title="Ben Yitzhak"}, “poetry interested him, as the ground of reality, as the foundation of the world. In his great despair, with which he lived for many years of his life, he did not believe that many people were capable of listening to this ground of the real.” Her remarks are quoted in this {id="3126" title="afterword"} to Ben Yitzhak’s Collected Poems, also published in the Israeli magazine.Ben Yitzhak’s biblical inspiration, his rhyme, rhythm and cadences taken from the Scripture, is something he shares with {id="3167" title="Ella Bat-Tsion"} and {id="3169" title="Israel Har"}, Israel’s two other featured poets this quarter. Their poetry, like Ben Yitzhak’s, is not always transparent or even comprehensible. Yet the private and mysterious has its own value, als Ella Bat-Tsion writes in {id="3386" title="I waited with endless patience"}:
something was made known to me, only for me
there is something just for me
not all is lost
The two new South-African poets of the quarter, {id="5385" title="Seitlhamo Motsapi"} and {id="5378" title="Karen Press"}, exemplify the great diversity of peoples and cultures existing in their country. Whereas Motsapi is known for his “pan-Africanist militancy, romantic spirituality, and a scathing attack on neo-colonialism”, his poems talking of “mount zion”, “Babylon” and “banging munition”, Press’s frame of reference rather includes urbane elemens such as Rodchenko, cappuccino, Horowitz, the Languedoc and Bruce Chatwin.
Finally, 22 year old {id="972" title="Shuijing Zhulian"}, our youngest poet of the quarter by a long way, is representative of a new alternative literary scene in China, a scene that primarily finds its voice on the internet rather than through the regular – controlled and constrained – channels of literary expression. Preoccupied with love, lust and a certain existential angst, her poems are written in a plain, matter of fact style devoid of literary embellishments. “him and I: love at first sight/ due to excess yearning/ this slice of romance only lasted a day and a twilight”, she writes in {id="1097" title="Love at first sight"}. In the words of our Chinese editor: “Shuijing walks that fine line between ironical provocation and the effort to push a little at the uncertainties of contemporary being.”
© Corine Vloet
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