Helen
Bar-Lev, IL
News and
Travel
This month, a
few personal pats on the back: Johnmichael Simon won
runner-up status in the Lindberg Poetry for Peace Contest –
I won a mere honourable mention, for which we both went to
Jerusalem a couple of weeks ago for a pleasant
awards-ceremony evening. See:
www.lindbergpeacefoundation.org In addition we
were both included in an Anthology of poems and stories for
grandparents, CHILD OF MY CHILD – edited by
Sandi Gelles-Cole and Kenneth Salzmann, see
www.ChildOfMyChild.biz
Cyclamens
and Swords has announced the 3rd judge for our
contest, submission deadline 30 November. It is Patrick
Osada of England. To read some of his wonderful poems,
please see
http://www.poetry-patrickosada.co.uk/ Please see
the
Cyclamens and Swords website for details.
~~
There is much
news from Voices Israel. The Anthology has
unfortunately been delayed. It is usually available by July
at the latest. This year it is not yet printed. Hopefully
soon. Because of this, submissions for the next 2011
Anthology have been extended as follows:
(see
http://voicesisrael.webs.com/anthology.htm for more
details)
Submissions for
Voices Israel Anthology Volume 37 to be published in
2011 are accepted until March 1st, 2011 (email or postmark
deadline).
Poems will be sent to the editorial board, reviewed,
selected, and notices sent out to contributors by June 30th.
The 2011 anthology will be printed by September 1st and
distributed before the holidays.
Anyone, anywhere, is welcome to submit a maximum of 4 poems
to the anthology. Poems should not exceed 40 lines.
Please include a list of your poems on a separate cover page
with your name, address telephone number and email address
and a short bio, not to exceed seven lines. Please attach
the cover letter and poems in a single Word or RTF file—one
poem per page, with no identifying information on the pages
of poems (only in the cover letter).
Judging is anonymous and the poems will be forwarded to the
editorial board without names. No revisions of poems will be
accepted after submission!
Emails of poems for the Anthology should be addressed to:
VoicesIsraelPoetryAnthology@gmail.com
If you have no access whatsoever to email please submit one
copy of each poem plus your cover page by regular mail
following the above guidelines, to:
Voices
Israel Anthology
c/o Michael Dickel
9 / 7 Shalom Yehuda
Jerusalem 93395 , Israel
In addition to
these changes, Prof. Seymour Mayne of Ottawa University, the
Reuben Rose judge for this year, cannot make it to Israel in
December for the awards ceremony, workshops, lectures, etc.
that judges usually do. His trip has been postponed until
Spring at the earliest. So I’ve organized a workshop to take
place in Tel-Aviv at the home of Thilde Fox on 15 December.
Within the first 3 days from the birth of the idea, the
workshop was full (20 people) and 5 presenters secured!
~~
Johnmichael and
I are off for a week in the desert – all the way down to
Eilat. We live in Metulla, the northernmost point in Israel
; Eilat is the southernmost point. Some statistics: Israel
stretches 424 kilometers (263 mi) from north to south, and
its width ranges from 114 kilometers (71 mi) to, at its
narrowest point, 15 kilometers (9.3 mi). You can do the
length on one tank of petrol! The first night we are
stopping off in Kibbutz Kalia’s guest house, then to the Ein
Gedi Nature Reserve where ibex and hyrax live and perhaps a
leopard or two, then to the Dead Sea Mineral Baths, then to
Kibbutz Yahel’s guest house where we will stay 3 nights,
visit the Hai Bar – a huge area where once-indigenous
animals (mentioned in the bible) are prepared for release
back to the wilde – one of the success stories is the onager,
a wild ass, thriving now in the wild. If you are interested,
please read more of this at http://redseadesert.com/html/060haibar.html
- it is fascinating and you will see photos of the animals.
The sand cat is a small cat with HUGE ears – absolutely
adorable – who does not need to drink water!
Reading over my report, it seems that most of it is composed
of links to websites rather than words or poems – so I shall
give you the poem that was published in the
Grandparent Anthology, CHILD OF MY CHILD, “The
Newborn Grandchild”, referring to my granddaughter Shanee,
who will be eight years old in January:
Be well all,
Helen
The Newborn
Grandchild
You
were born one early January noon
That transformed me into grandparenthood
Skinny little bundle of perfection
I was the first one to greet you
Into this imperfect world
We conversed – I with words
You with your senses
A bond formed then,
As tight as the swathing clothes
As beautiful as your eyes
Roaming the room,
Eyebrows puckered
Questioning the sensations
Of a world outside the womb
Conversation ended
Mother recovered,
You reverted back to her care
Tiny enchantress
Who could have imagined
You’d snuggle so securely
Into that unsuspecting compartment
Of my heart, vacant and aching for you
All these years
© 8.2006 Helen Bar-Lev
Helen
Bar-Lev, artist, poet
www.helenbarlev.com
Senior Editor,
Cyclamens and Swords Publishing
www.cyclamensandswords.com
Contributing editor,
SKETCHBOOK: A Journal for Eastern and Western
Short Forms
http://poetrywriting.org/
International Senior Poet Laureate, 2009
Amy Kitchener Foundation
