P o e t ry c h o i c e liZ caShDan SElEctS fRom REaDERS’ S U bmi S S i o n S


The poems for this issue arise out of travel and sculpture. Jo Ezekiel’s article in the last issue of Jewish Renaissance on her visit to India in search of her Indian roots is echoed here in her poemAlibaug just as she says shemay be a “lost echo”. I think in fact the very writing of her poemmeans that the echo is not lost but will go on sounding as long as there are people to read the poem. Michael Berg, on a writing course at the Tate Gallery, wrestled with words as he looked at two works of art based on the story of Jacob’s wrestle with the angel: the one here arose fromthe sculpture by Jacob Epstein.


alibaUG Schoolgirls cycle past us red ribbon plaits


Jacob anD thE anGEl - wire baskets one rattling a jacaranda branch


‘my Dad is indian and Jewish’ i tell people all my life without them even asking


i am a lost echo of this country


Ghosts of the past sewn into curtains or beaded on mezuzahs


carry loss for what is broken later i see it


discarded on the road


need know faith


on this dusty road Joanna EZEkiEl


a red ribbon


tied around my bones i am here


this is why weighing up the toll all temples jacaranda branch nobody else Perhaps


SUPPlication after Jacob and the angel by Jacob epstein


i name you israel said the angel after their struggle through the night i embrace you i support you my spirit is your flesh in supplication we are as one out of one block Your limp and lifting limbs Your pleading grasp Your lifting gaze Yield to my thrust my winged hands my piercing eye Proclaim this moment When we rise


together michaEl bERG


Please send submissions for the January 2012 issue, no longer than 30 lines, to our poetry editor, liz cashdan: lizcashdan@onetel.com or post (with SaE) to: 36 Sterndale Road, Sheffield S7 2lD by 28 november


Poetry review liZ caShDan seLeCTeD PoeMs


EvGEnY REin bloodaxe 2001, 176pp, £9.95


Although this dual language book (Russian and English) of Rein’s poems was published ten years ago, I only started reading it a few weeks ago. He is a remarkable poet and was a patron and friend of Joseph Brodsky, another Jewish Russian poet, who won the Nobel Prize in 1987. Reinwas born in 1935, not a propitious


period in Soviet history for vaunting your Jewishness. In fact,when his parentswere deported, his nanny had himbaptised. Nevertheless his concerns as a poet,with reference to both content and language,make his poetry chimewith that of Bialik, or perhaps of amore contemporary poetwriting


in English, Jewish andWelsh:DannyAbse. In his poem‘Monastery’, Rein describes


a run down building that has been occupied by homeless people, one of themthe narrator of the poem,who says: “Iwas the only Jew in thewhole building.” Strangely this line is omitted in the Bloodaxe edition, but present in anAmerican anthology of Russian poetry. Were his Bloodaxe translators or


publishers trying to deny his Jewishness? The poemis about the contrast between the idea that “Man’s a wolf toman” and the realisation that “thanks are due to roof and board and all / to himwho designates our lot and weighs for each his due.” In an article on poetry Rein wrote that


poetry always concerns itself with the battle between good and evil, between hell and paradise, which he claims was apparent in


Hebrewmyths as well as other early poems and stories. But his poetry is not all serious stuff: he


gives us glimpses of St.Petersburg,Venice, cats by the canals, his dog not bothered by the TV, nor the streamof visitors who come to his house. UnlikeBrodsky,whose conflictswith the


authorities led to exile and a newlife in the USAuntil his death in 1996,Rein remained in Russia and nowlives inMoscow. You can hear himread some of his


poetry onYoutube, and the strong rhythm and rhyme comes across through the Russian. The translators of this book have tried to reproduce the rhythmin English and keep at least a suggestion of the rhyme. This is a poet worth getting to know in English and Russian, if you canmanage it.


JEWiSh REnaiSSancE octobER 2011 53


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