Michal Govrin
READINGS IN JERUSALEM
From February 18th to the 24th of this year, thirty-three poets
from around the world came to Jerusalem, from the People's Republic of
China, the Soviet Union, Hungary, Czechoslovakia. They were joined by
thirty-one Israeli poets and by an autonomous delegation of Palestinian poets,
the "West Bank." The first Jerusalem Poetry Festival was organized by
Mishkenot Sha'ananim, Jerusalem'S official guest house and cultural center.
Many distinguished poets were invited: Edward Hana Sa'id, who was denied
a permit to leave Egypt, and Breyten Breytenbach, who was granted a visa
to enter South Africa, on the occasion of Nelson Mandela's liberation, can–
celled at the last moment, but Ilhan Berk came from Turkey, Roberto
Juarroz from Argentina, Vasko Popa from Yugoslavia, and Homero Aridjis
from Mexico. English poetry was somewhat underrepresented: only Les
Murray of Australia, Richard Murphy of Ireland, Charles Tomlinson of
England, and Robert Creeley of the United States were there. Rita Dove
from America was the only poet who cancelled for "political reasons" ;Joseph
Brodsky declined for personal reasons. Allen Ginsburg hesitated and
consented too late to attend. Translators attached themselves to the poets,
creating enclaves of languages.
At the opening reception, Harold Schimmel, who has exchanged
his American English for a Hebrew all his own, clutches my arm: "What,
you haven't met Michel Deguy yet?" (Both of us are fanatical readers of the
magazine
Po&sie,
which Deguy edits.) The bustle, the international vague–
ness of any cocktail party, its theatrical supercharging of the ego, the milling
of monads - each one fortified behind a plate and a glass of wine - did not
portend well for communication or direct address. The same hopelessness as
when routine shutters vision, until even the monumental sights of the city are
covered with dust, the same dust comes back to me from Tomaz Salamun's
poem, "Pity": "... for example dust / wherever it falls / down or to the side /
or the existence of roots . .. " The crowds had not yet parted to reveal the
tall figure and fiery glance of the Slovene poet whose words now, after the
conclusion of the festival, continue to carve unknown faces in the landscape:
"... you're the light of the world / no hiding place even in the mountains." (tr.
Charles Simic).
Then the readings begin, in twenty-five languages. Voices leap into the
center. The focus grows sharper, and with it the concentration, the listening.
Arieh Sachs sculpts Hebrew with his whole body, three "Lines on the
Tombstone ofMy Parents." Behind the windows, there are the tiny lights of
distant slopes. The warm voice of Erez Biton, with a shade of Moroccan ac-
