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Celebrations
and Events
by Helen
Bar-Lev, IL
Celebrations
It is Christmas Eve
here in the Holy Land and I wanted to wish all of you who
celebrate this holiday a very happy and healthful one. Here the
predominant Christian religions are the Orthodox churches:
Greek, Syrian, Russian, Ethiopian, etc., and Christmas, or
Epiphany, is celebrated 6 January. Just the Latins celebrate the
25th. The Armenians celebrate it even later in January. When I
lived in the compound of the Ethiopian Church in Jerusalem 20
years ago I would go to their services in the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, and there, in that small space, the monks would stand
resting on their staves, chanting, playing their cistrums and
from time to time laughing with pleasure. The tallest monk would
sit and play a drum that was enormous and had animal skin on
either end, so that his arms could barely reach both ends at the
same time, but they did, and he played all night long. It was an
amazing experience which I shall remember forever, even tho that
is a cliche.
Poetry Events
On the 15th of
December Doug Holder*, the judge of this year's Reuben Rose
competition, arrived in Israel, for a whirlwind of a week. On
the 16th he was here at our home for an evening get-together
with ourselves and some other poets, which was lovely. The
following day we took him for an excursion in this area, and
then back to the kibbutz where he was staying, Yizre'el, which
is where our president, Mike Scheidemann, lives. Then, Tuesday
morning he gave an all-day workshop at the home of Ruth
Kaufmann, who lives near Hadera, whom I have spoken of before.
The following evening the awards were present in Tel-Aviv. We
could not go, but my poem, Two Zinnias, which won an honourable
mention, was read by a friend.
The next day up to
Jerusalem for Doug, where he was shown the sites by Adrian Boas
and met with a lot of poets that evening at the home of Gretti
Izak. Friday and Saturday held a two-day workshop in Netanya,
attended by about 20. Throughout this time Doug was tireless and
WONDERFUL!!!! Everyone was impressed by his manner, his
knowledge, his dedication to poetry. The following morning,
Sunday, he flew back home to Somerville near Boston, MA.
The four prizes were won by 1. Zvi Sesling, of the Boston area
(the poems were judged anonymously, so Doug didn't know Zvi won
until I told him, and then they met, for the first time!), 2.
Celia Merlin, 3. Reuben Goldfarb, 4. Wendy Blumfield. There were
10 honourable mentions which do not receive monetary prizes. I
shall send the texts of these poems in next month, after they
are published in the Voices newsletter.
In the meantime here is my poem Two Zinnias, which won
honourable mention, and 2 poems I wrote at the workshop.
Joinville-le-Pont was written on the basis of postcards passed
out by Doug which were all old and evocative. I chose this one,
and lo-and-behold, I have a friend who lives there and stayed
there for a little while while I had an exhibition in Paris
about 20 years ago. The Poetry Workshop poem was written on the
basis of an exercise about food.
Take care all, and I wish you wonderful holidays,
Helen
Helen
Bar-Lev, Artist, Poet
Editor-in-Chief, Voices
Israel Anthology
www.helenbarlev.com
*Doug Holder is the
owner of Ibbetson Press, a small press based in Somerville, MA,
and a million other things having to do with poetry...
http://www.ibbetsonpress.com
http://dougholder.blogspot.com
http://authorsden.com/douglasholder
http://somervillenewswritersfestival.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ibbetsonstreetpressupdate
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