Barren Lusciousness
The collected poems of Dahlia Rabikovitch
The publication of the Hovering at Low Altitude, in the translation of the “two chana’s” Kronfeld and Bloch, is a wonderful occasion for anyone remotely interested in Hebrew letters, and to those interested in poetry, wherever it’s written. Translating the collected poems of this complex and historically pivotal Israeli poet is a monumental task, to say the least, and it is brilliantly executed by the duo. Both hardly require introduction. Chana Bloch is a fine poet in her own right and has already given us some of the best translations of Hebrew poetry, including a collection of poems by Rabikovitch. Chana Kronfeld is the first lady of Hebrew literature in America, a well-loved teacher that helped turn Berkley into a powerhouse of Hebrew letters producing some of the finest scholars and scholarship in the field. Together they have already collaborated on a translation of Yehuda Amichai’s sublime last book, Open Closed Open, and with the present volume they offer the English reader a rare opportunity to experience Hebrew poetry in almost paradoxical proximity.
There is no need to repeat the well known difficulties of poetic translation, yet they are augmented in translation from Hebrew, where poetry can hardly distance itself from the constant resonance of canonic scripture. A well placed word can drag a whole book of the bible into a poem and will prohibit poetry from straying far from it. It is on this level that the present translation excels. Together, the two Chanas bring to the translation a sensibility and understanding of allusion that gives the reader a clear idea of what remains inaccessible. Yet all the footnotes in the world can only but endow the reader with a Moses like feeling: you can see the land but you can never enter.
Dahlia Rabikovitch began to publish in 1955, making her first appearance in Orlogin, edited by Shlonsky, a major poet and persona in the culture of the time. When her well received first book The Love of an Orange appeared in 1959, it was clear she was a major poet. Her early poetry appears almost defensive in its luscious employment of the Hebrew; writing against a national culture that confined women to the private sphere. Her defiance, like that of her predecessor Yocheved Bat Miriam, ran the risk of rendering her into another well-trodden stereotype of female writing: the Delphic mystic. In the works that follow, one can see her striving to both engage and resist. In the Hebrew it is clearly visible that her poetry slowly turns away from the canon and toward a more quotidian Hebrew that remains in dialogue mainly with the bible; and not necessarily with its more obscure parts.
Like the title of her first book, where for the English “Orange” stands the Hebrew “Tapuach Zahav”, literally – golden apple, much of this richness is lost. No less misleading is the inevitable reading of her poetry as a representative of Israeli culture. By the time Dahlia passed away in 2005, she might well have been a favorite poet, but in a culture that showed poets very little kindness and attributed little significance to their elaboration of reality. Indubitable as her leftist political commitment were, it would be a mistake to read her solely in this light, not because we cannot, but perhaps because we are so at loss in doing otherwise. I might venture to say here that as the footnotes and the lucid introduction clearly demonstrate, Israeli politics and history are constantly in view, and as an interpretative key, it partakes in empire rather than resist.
Without subtracting anything from the poetic wonder of this book, I would recommend reading it without the footnotes, without Israeli politics and culture. To concentrate on being lost in translation and not on what is lost in translation. “Abandon all hope” you who have endured Hebrew school for years without learning Hebrew, and abandon yourself to her perfectly translated rhythm and alliteration. Rabikovitch is a marvel of contemporary poetry and Jewish literature, and her doleful work that of a grand artist living in a hot violent country she cannot change, and about which she need not say more than is obvious to any human being. In Hebrew one can argue that her poetry, through language, challenges deep cultural institutions, and her elaboration of complicity is relevant to any culture and translates well. Mostly what traverses the languages is well known politically and we are left with a true and heartfelt view of reality that is not unknown to those who do not bar their ears and hearts: Jews and Hebrew have turned cruel.
What remains in the end is poetry, a voice beyond life conversing with the dead. From her “stinking Mediterranean city”, she speaks of all that people speak of in other stinking cities, as well as in those with a fair scent. Pain, sorrow, love and solitude in a violent world, quickly or seemingly deteriorating, are all there. Translated into English, the lusciousness of her poetry persists in footnote and yet the brilliant translations are more than enough. Even without footnotes most of them easily convey her bewildering capacity to marry complexity with simplicity, the lush with the barren, love with death. Thanks to the two very gifted Chanas, this is a work one can hardly read from cover to cover. Rather like very fine wine, or a very bitter cup, one should try to drink slowly. A poem a day has yet to keep any doctor away, but her poetry will change your heart.
The Forward, May 29th 2009
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