Interview with
Johnmichael Simon
Question:
When did you begin to write poetry and what prompted you to
write?
Answer: When I was sixteen, I wrote a sonnet that was
published in the school magazine. Round about that time I
also started composing comic operettas that we performed at
camp fires in the Jewish youth movement Habonim. From then
onwards until my mid sixties I wrote maybe 20 poems in all,
most of them prompted by moments of anguish or grief. At age
sixty-something the muse surfaced again and since then I
have been compulsively writing poetry, often daily. I now
have a collection of well over a thousand poems and I’m
still going strong.
Question: How long have you been a member of Voices?
Answer: I joined Voices Israel in 2004, first as a
member of the Jerusalem group and after we moved to Metulla,
started going to the meetings in Haifa. Currently I am
webmaster of the Voices website:
http://www.freewebs.com/voicesisrael/
Question: Do you belong to any other writing/poetry
groups? Please tell us a little about them.
Answer: We have a small group of writers from the
Galilee that meets once every two weeks in one of the
member’s homes. The group consists of about ten writers and
is of a high standard. We read poetry and short stories and
one of the members recently brought a play she had written.
We hand out copies of the work we are reading and each of
the participating members writes his or her comments right
on the copy. Then we hold a general discussion of every
piece. I have found these meetings to be very helpful and
the critiquing to be constructive and professional. We have
enriched one another in this group and many a lack-luster
piece has been honed to a glowing finish with the aid of the
group’s input.
Question: What are the most important changes you’ve
seen in Voices in this time?
Answer: Voices, as the English speaking poetry
organization is Israel has undergone several changes in the
last few years. The most notable being an influx of younger
poets: university students, younger faces from outlying
settlements, professional people. Membership has also been
augmented by the addition of overseas poets who have joined
and contribute their work to the annual anthology. The
Reuben Rose annual poetry competition sponsored by Voices
Israel also attracts a growing international interest due in
part to the increase in prize money offered.
Question: What inspires your poetry?
Answer: Everything. Day-to-day events, from the
minutest to the news headlines. The changing faces of the
environment. Interesting people met on the way. Science,
medicine, the huge environmental challenges of our age.
Above all, others’ poetry, books, periodicals, magazines,
Internet publications. The meeting of minds. Like and
unlike, voices from other cultures, other ages, other
languages. It’s never ending.
Question: Which forms do you prefer? Why?
Answer: Depending on my mood and muse I write in a multitude
of styles and voices. Children’s poetry is often a favorite,
often but not always rhyming. I enjoy writing sonnets,
ballads and other classical forms. A lot of my poetry is
modern where style and form take second place to substance
and content. I like bumping different metaphors up against
each other and watching how they interact. I’m experimental
more in content than in form, preferring the lyrical to the
exhibitionistic. Striving always to preserve the music of
the phrases and stanzas. In fact many of my poems are about
musical subjects which is one of my great loves.
Question: Who is your favorite poet?
Answer: I don’t really have one favorite poet. There
are so may wonderful ones out there. Mary Oliver is one whom
I keep returning to. Our own Yehudah Amichai is another. I
still love some of the classic poets whose work I grew up
with, Blake, Wordsworth, the Fitzgerald translation of the
Rubaiyat. Tony Hoagland, Sylvia Plath.
Question: Where have you been published?
Answer: I have several books of poetry:
Sonatina, mostly on musical subjects,
Bordwinot, a collection of ballads, balderdash and
other strange ingredients, Silly Wishes, a
collection of children’s poems, Phyrrs Hierwals and
Bouldergeists, mostly zany stuff. These can be
viewed and purchased from the website
www.cyclamensandswords.com of which I am chief
editor. In addition two collaborations together with Helen
Bar-Lev, Cyclamens and Swords, poems about
Israel and The Muse in the Suitcase, poems
from our travels around the world. In addition my poems can
be found in numerous anthologies, in print and online and
can also be viewed at my personal website
http://johnmichaelsimon.webs.com/
Question:
Where do you live? family?
Answer: I live in Metulla, a small village on the
northern border of Israel together with my partner Helen
Bar-Lev. I have four children, a son who lives in Ireland,
another son in London and a third who lives here in Israel.
I have a fifteen year old daughter who is at school here in
Jerusalem. Helen has four grandchildren who have adopted me
and call me grandpa.
Question: How long have you lived in Israel?
In which country were you born?
Answer: I was born in Northampton, England, grew up in
Johannesburg, South Africa and have lived mostly in Israel
since immigrating here in 1961.
Sample
Poems
From
Sonatina
To Hold the
Notes
There was a
time
when the notes slept, hibernating,
breathing thumbed parchment,
quiet as cathedrals locked up for the night
while around parish hearths
stout voices sang their pious words
Then came wax cylinders
wound tightly as bobbins
and squashy shellac blobs
that pressed out and dried the notes to brittle patties
where winding roads and bumpy paths
guide scratchy thorns along their quavering circuits
Scant revolutions later notes hiss over speeding decks
in and out of skimpy see-through dresses
while jockeys whirl them back and forth
like dolls at a barnyard square dance
and singles stand around waiting to join the jig
Still fading, the notes, collapsing further
sought refuge in wires, shiny ribbons, skin thin wafers
that held hieroglyphics of their shrinking glory
while packets of ones and zeros
carried them from ear to busy ear
Amidst this impersonal mechanical going on
we set our feet upon the northern road
that leads between the towering peaks and rushing
streams
where bird song, rosy apples, fields of cyclamen
and shady cypresses walked beside us down the peaceful
ways
And in the valley, beneath the spreading oaks
a classroom beckoned, just a wooden shack
but from its open windows came forth such a blessed
sound
that we, compelled by its beauty, approached
There seated on simple wooden chairs four youngsters sat
at cello, viola and two violins
and as we watched them play and pause
and play again and annotate and then again
our hearts began to sing with them
and as we smiled and listened on
we knew the notes had found their home
From
Bordwinot
Mona Lisa
and David
She was
the match that lit the fire
that burns down the centuries
a darkish sweet mystery
her serene smile
so well known so loved
her thoughts her private existence
so little understood
where did she go after work?
And he
whose manly curves grace
a thousand books
was there a nice fire
glowing unseen in the background
to lull him into immobility?
into which world did he step
after donning his robes
what kind of manuscripts did he enjoy
reading in the lonely evenings?
Had they lived on
as their effigies do
perhaps they may have met in the street
had a cup of coffee, a pizza, fallen in love
her match might have lit the coals of his fire
he might have bought her a ring
and she him a jock strap
Such are the flames of culture
that brighten the halls of the world
while we comfort ourselves anonymously
in their warmth
before going on our way
From Silly Wishes
A
Funny Goat Dream
Godfrey
the goat had a dream one night
that woke him up, so he turned on the light
but as hard as he tried to remember the dream
the details kept running away from him
so he emptied his head out on to the ground
and started to sort through what he found
and to make sure there was nothing that he missed
he picked up a pencil and made a list
and here’s what he found…
One old rhyme that he’d completely forgotten
about wooly pajamas (or was it cotton?)
a chewed up multiplication table
which explained why at math he wasn’t so able
three jokes about Englishmen and Scots in some other
land
the point of which he didn’t quite understand
two telephone numbers that he’d learnt off by heart
useless now since they’d changed how they start
rules about which way to cross the street
and stuff about closing your mouth when you eat
a few new words to God Save the Queen
some nasty things he’d said that he didn’t mean
several lies he’d told that sounded quite neat
and some secrets he’d promised not to repeat
but of that funny dream there wasn’t a trace
and now in his head there was lots of space
so he turned off the light and went back to bed
and woke up in the morning with this rhyme in his
head
From Cyclamens and Swords
Masada Ceremony
We were in
the mouths of ancient stones, looking out
the world was sky, stars forever, blackness.
Ascending in single file, silhouettes of knapsacks,
shadow lanterns
against ridges, rocks dividing dark from denser dark.
Moonless; a millipede of thoughts and concentration
snaking back two thousand years in memoriam.
Below, the deadness of water glinted raw oil,
a truck beetled its headlights from the gulf.
Above, those who have gone before watch in pride,
eyes of generations mouthing words of piety and
strength.
A snake of words consuming itself in dust, blood and
flame
to lay down their lives that words might live…
Hear O Israel!
Sunrise glints on weapons hushed in peace.
