Dolor

2002 · ref. 78460 — Madison WI/Takoma Park MD: The University of Wisconsin Press/Dryad Press 2002. A Bilingual Edition in Hebrew and English. First printing stated. Trade paperback. Very good. xiii 1 131 5 pages. Inscribed by the author on the fep. Ronny Someck Hebrew: ; born 1951 is an Israeli poet and author whose works have been translated into many languages. Someck has published 11 volumes of poetry and authored 2 children's book together with his daughter Shirly The Laughter Button and Monkey Tough Monkey Bluff that have been translated into 41 languages. Selections of his poems have appeared in Arabic translation French Catalan Albanian Italian Macedonian Croatian Yiddish Nepali Dutch Danish Spanish Portuguese and English. He is the recipient of the Prime Minister's Award Yehuda Amichai Award for Hebrew poetry The "Wine poem award" in Struga Poetry Evenings Macedonia 2005 and Hans Berghhuis prize for poetry 2006 at the Maastricht International Poetry Nights the Netherlands. He has recorded three discs with the musician Elliott Sharp: Revenge of the Stuttering Child Poverty Line and A Short History of Vodka. From a review by Eric Maroney posted on line: The Fire Stays Red Hebrew poet Ronny Someck's first collection of English translations and here in a bi-lingual edition is a powerful example of the range and nuance capable in modern Israeli Hebrew. Someck an Israeli of Iraqi descent sprinkles his poems with Arabic words and transliterates English words with Hebrew inflections and endings illustrating just how international and mature a language Hebrew has become; it can absorb the words of other cultures while maintaining its own staunch and vibrant Hebrew identity. Someck's poems are a wide ranging study on the Israeli predicament but also encompass other subjects like the erotic with a distinctly Israeli touch in `Niva' where `Once I saw her take off her blouse. Her tan bra was the color of a shack in a transit camp for immigrants' to the humorous `Poem of Longing' where `I long for Grandpa's acrobatics / as he leapt / from one sidewalk/ to another.' Someck's Hebrew is vernacular crisp and slangy. Yet like many Hebrew poets he can't fully escape biblical allusion and this is shown in the last poem `Red Catalog of the Word Sunset.' Here a French poet sees red and compares it to `burgundy from a cloud of grapes" an English poet to a rose but the Hebrew poet to blood. Someck's is a country "fastening cannibal lips/ to the setting sun's virginal throat.' The poet's arms are `oars of fear' which `row like Noah to Ararat." The University of Wisconsin Press/Dryad Press paperback