Louis Esterhuizen. PIW fokus op 3 Israeliese digters
Friday, July 20th, 2012
Soos ek in ‘n vorige blog geskryf het, het ek die afgelope maand besonderse blootstelling aan die Joodse kultuur gehad en daar, al snuffelende op die internet vir nuusbrokkies, vind ek dat Poetry International Web (PIW) in hul nuutste uitgawe op drie Hebreeuse digters fokus. Hulle is naamlik Benjamin Shvili (1954), Oreet Meital (1957) en Lyor Shternberg (1967). Van dié drie is dit veral Shtenberg (foto) wat my beïndruk het.
Volgens Lisa Katz se begeleidende artikel kan Shternberg se poësie soos volg beskryf word: “Shternberg walks the fine line between belonging to his own society (and its ills) and belonging as well to the larger universe of poetry where each individual poet uses the imagery of his own place to describe these ‘dark stains’.”
Nog ‘n insiggewende leeservaring is Yochai Oppenheimer se artikel “Ireland, Israel, personal, political – On the poetry of Lyor Shternberg” wat op PIW se hoofblad geplaas is. ‘n Passasie uit dié artikel wat my in die besonder opgeval het, is waar Oppenheimer die teenswoordige digkuns in Israel tipeer: “Contemporary Israeli poetry includes the confessional lyric circling round the melancholic loneliness of the self, balanced by an opposing tendency to flee from the individual self into prose or transposition of the (modernist) self in images created by the culture industry. It sees writing as a way of coping with the world at the same time that it bears an outspoken contempt for writing, which it views as compulsive chatter. It favours vernacular poetry devoid of metaphor or idiom but at the same time is open to the variety of languages available in today’s Israel, including the adoption of local dialects. This partial list of characteristics is also relevant to writers focusing on their own struggle for recognition of their marginal (ethnic, sexual or religious) identity.”
Op die oog af blyk daar nogal heelwat ooreenstemming tussen die Israeliese en Afrikaanse digkunste te wees … Of wat praat ek nou?
Nietemin, vir jou leesplesier volg ‘n pantoen uit die pen van Lyor Shternberg hieronder.
***
SHE ENTERS ON TIPTOE
I couldn’t any more –
she entered the shady room on tiptoe
and lifted her summer dress
above her thighs the way I like.
Soft afternoon light floated in the room.
I couldn’t anymore,
(curled up in the bed, toes digging in the mattress)
she lifted her summer dress.
The sound of a moving car entered the window.
Soft afternoon light floated in the room.
I gazed for a long time at the milky waterfall of her thighs
curled up in the bed, toes digging in the mattress.
The wooden shutter banged against the wall.
The sound of a moving car entered the window.
She placed a bare knee on the white sheet,
I gazed for a long time at the milky waterfall of her thighs.
The folds in the sheet undulated quickly like waves,
the wooden shutter banged against the wall.
Nothing but this in the stillness –
she placed a bare knee on the white sheet.
The wooden shutter banged against the wall.
She lifted her summer dress.
She placed a bare knee on the white sheet.
I couldn’t anymore.
© Lyor Shternberg (Uit: Beit, Gvanim, Tel Aviv: 1999)
