Look There - Agi Mishol Translated from the Hebrew by Lisa Katz

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Look There

Selected Poems

Agi Mishol Translated from the Hebrew by Lisa Katz

Graywolf Press Paper, December 2005
ISBN: 978-1-55597-436-7, ISBN10: 1-55597-436-8,
6 x 9 inches, 112 pages,
Trade Paperback, $14.00

Praise
Biography

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See All Categories Poetry Poetry in Translation

A Lannan Translation Selection

This collection marks the American debut of one of Israel's most celebrated poets. Look There (translated by Lisa Katz), written in the instability of contemporary Israel, is a balancing act between brave utterance and comic revelation, stark reality and pure pleasure. The poet dreams of being married to Stephen Hawking; she freezes in the spotlight of her own poetry reading; a suicide bomber disguised as a pregnant woman walks into a Jerusalem bakery. "Mishol's poems feel perfectly weighted. Her mix of honest empathy and care and elegant wit is deeply touching and enlivening."—Naomi Shihab Nye

Praise

"'May you live in interesting times' goes the curse, and every Israeli poet lives under its spell. To address what's the called the matsav (the 'situation') is to risk propagandism; to ignore it is to appear a Pangloss or coward. Mishol, born in 1947 in Hungary to Holocaust to Holocaust survivors and raised in Israel, finds a surprising amount of room to maneuver with these constraints, taking up political subjects with a sly delicacy reminiscent of the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska's best work . . . Katz captures Mishol's subtle combination of tenacity and mischief in this first selection of the poet's work to appear in English."—Joel Brouwer, The New York Times Book Review

"Agi Mishol's poems feel perfectly weighted. Her mix of honest empathy and care ('I who am not exempt from anything—') and elegant wit ('I red into the darkness quickly / the words I thought of so slowly') is deeply touching and enlivening. This is a voice and a spirit to welcome and to live with, gratefully"—Naomi Shihab Nye

"In contemporary Israeli poetry, intense, white flames appear against the dark, burning background, whose smoke is greater than the fire. Those with eyes in their heads can see: Agi Mishol's poetry is one of the brightest of these flames."—Dan Miron, Leonard Kaye Professor of Hebrew Literature, Columbia University

About the Author(s)

Agi Mishol

Agi Mishol was born in 1947 in Hungary to Holocaust survivors and grew up in Israel. She is the author of more than twelve books of poetry, and the winner of the first Yehuda Amichai Poetry Prize, the Prime Minister's Prize for Literature, and many other awards.

Lisa Katz is a poet, translator, and scholar. She teaches at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel.