Contributing Editor, Helen Bar-Lev, IL

 

 

Interview with Michael Stone, IL   Question: What is your profession? I am retired and spend my time mainly on writing and research. All my life I taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Ancient Jewish Thought and Literature and also Armenian Studies. I have an extensive list of academic publications and, most important, have educated some good scholars. Question: In which country were you born? England: I grew up in Australia. Question: How long have you lived in Israel? Since 1960, with some years away on sabbatical leave. Question: When did you begin to write poetry and what prompted you to write? I began to write (my adult writing – of course I wrote a bit as a teenager) in 1999. I was staying with an old friend, the Armenian Patriarch of Turkey, in the Patriarchate in Istanbul, en route to Armenia. The earthquake hit about 2 am. It was an extraordinary experience; and it shook me out of a sort of aesthetic somnolence. I went on to Armenia with my son, Dan. We toured to a number of places, some new to me and some well-known. I had to record my responses to them which were exceptionally powerful. I did so in prose. After writing several pieces of descriptive prose, I suddenly realised that it was rhythmic and actually fell well into the patterns of blank verse. Eventually, after much internal agonizing, I sent them to Leo Hamalian, editor then of Ararat, in New York. Leo, whom I had met once before and always solicited me for articles, accepted them and encouraged. He was a prince of a man who died some years later and Ararat has never been the same. Question: How long have you been a member of Voices? I don’t rightly remember: about a decade. Question: Do you belong to any other writing/poetry groups? Please tell us a little about them. IAWE which is a sub-category of the Israel writer’s union. I belong, often publish in their anthology, but only rarely attend events. Question: What are the most important changes you’ve seen in Voices in all this time? Up to the last year or so, when I have attended only sporadically, the Jerusalem group was made up of older poets, with a few younger ones to spice the mixture. Some remarkable people, with English as second or third language. Now, in my latest visits, I feel a changing of the guards and some new poets, younger, have attended. It is, in my view, a quite extraordinary group. Question: What inspires your poetry? I wish I knew -- seeing, life, feeling, mainly consciousness. In specifics, for me-- self and its struggle for adulthood and things that help me configure myself; Jerusalem and Israel and being here and the land; subjects to which I give much scholarly energy, which carry great associations, such as manuscripts, Armenia; interactions in teaching, frienship, love, memory.  I also love translating medieval Armenian poetry into English. Question: Which forms do you prefer? Blank verse, often in non-rhyming quatrains, 4-6 feet, alliteration and sometimes A:C or B:D rhyme. Question: Why? I am most comfortable with this sort of blank verse. I have written some much more formal poetry, sonnets, etc. but never feel mastery. Question: Who is your favorite poet? Hopkins in English; probably Frik in Armenian. Question: Where have you been published? Quite a lot of venues: some Armenian ones, mainly Literary Groong, Armenian Poetry Project; a few Jewish/Israel ones such as Deronda, Cyclamens and Swords, Voices (I try to avoid “Grandmother’s gefilte fish” venues and the Armenian equivalent “Grandmother’s dolmas” venues); some general ezines and print magazines such as SpeedPoets (from Queensland), Avocet, BellowingArk. Question: Where do you live? I live in Jerusalem and have lived in the same house since 1971. I see the Judean hills from the windows, ridged by the stumps of terraces some of which are 2,000 years old. The room in which I work looks out on the hills and the shadows of the forest change as it moves across the sky. The sunsets, especially from spring to autumn, obsess me. Question: Tell us a little about your family? My wife of 50 years is a historian of art and we like one another a lot. I have two children, and at present, four grandchildren, more coming, I am told. My parents grew up in the ghetto in Leeds, my birthplace. Large, working class families, many cousins most of whom I know only superficially because my family emigrated to Australia. I have been fortunate in my life and friends   Free Verse   The New Pond   ducks, geese and rushes, a swan parceled up head wrapped in wing ducks root in mud, and geese splash-land on the water. on a post, a duck sits like a effigy watching the goose squadrons swim in regatta. willows’ long leaf-hair combs the shining surface and green algae scum reflects the shopping centre wall. in Sinai’s wilderness millennial marks record an ancient nomad’s passing. Norway’s virgin forest, first and pines and snow, is primal, untouched, pathless. but here by the new pond trees are planted, rushes trained upright, paths swept, grass mowed, edges neatly clipped, fallen leaves daily blown away, and never crackle under food. North Carolina, 2006 Previously published in Avocet winter 2010     A Notebook   The famous paperless office isn’t, and stationery shops have become mini computer stores with a few school notebooks and crayons. Apologies for what they once were.   I wanted a good notebook to write in with my fountain pen, without the ink bleeding through and ghosting on the other side or staining paper veins around letters. Not for ballpoint or roller ball, or gel or felt or any other such, but for a pen, ink and gold nib. One of writing’s pleasures, a once modern replacement for an iron nib and an inkwell. I found a foolscap, graph-ruled, black-boarded note book. The only one with polished paper for writing, for writing over and under and polishing. for crossing out, writing above and correcting. It had black covers and a spiral, not bound. But that’s a small concession to make for paper and pen and nib, and ink that does not bleed, through one side of life to another. Previously published in Speed Poets April 2010     Green Stones   Riding in an old dark forest, On a deer-path scarcely seen, Where vines like mossy ropes, Brush the young man's head. Circles cut into great trees Mark out his way within, To a shadowed, hidden place, On a path now seen, now hidden. Guided by damp green stones By runes cut in ages past, Piercing the forest's heart, Beyond where men's paths lead. Quiet respite flows forth, The rider senses its stream, No birds call out in there, The heart is silent, serene.     i do not know about God   i do not know about God, i cannot say "you" to Him as One I address directly. such providential realism is not mine. liturgy, though, has its own rhythm. familiar service, words soothe the soul. suddenly, meaning strikes home, pierces the heart! let the pattern of words then, known, loved, carry us and, if we are lucky, every now and then focus in a different way, sharp, impelling, shock. 30 April, 2010     Whiskers   Shaving, whiskers growing with grey, look carefully at face, do not nick. When else do we stop, look at our face, our hands, ourselves, for eyes are windows of the soul. Is the soul mottled like my whiskers? When the kids were little I scratched them with my whiskers, black they were then. Soap and brush and lather, lathered with sweat, heave, heavy, heave-ho, up goes the topsail. the drunken sailor. After all why shave with a safety blade, or a straightedge stropped on leather when the electric is so easy? But you don’t need a mirror. shaving, wood shavings from planing Canadian pine curl up in tight pine-scented rolls drop to the floor arm, shoulder, torso move the plane over the wood. Smooth, fluid movement shaving whiskers, old ways, up the topsail, planing pine by hand, shaven and showered. Previously published in Speed Poets.     from Selected Poems   Locked Gates   Still, chill air in the street empty early morning bare high walls, closed gates flash and unlock so key-holders may enter into the palaces. door-keepers guardians keys passwords, open and permit ascent upwards inwards through door within doors to the palace within palaces that eye rejoices which alone can read the key to place in the lock the word, the pass code to open locked gates in the palaces' heart the throne room flashes fiery rivers and crystal. He is there and not there and not just there for ever now.     Birds of Paradise*   The parchment lampshade glows warmly, adorned with a peacock that preens proudly between two fruit trees, like in the Garden. Its angles'-eye tail curves down, Paradise bird, immortality's symbnol. Cherubs' wings are full of eyes, God's eyes range all the earth. The vine meanders through the mosaic, tracing medallions, embracing birds in its grape-weighed branches, with pomegranates--Eden's fruit. At the vine's stock a bird in a cage, its wings flutter in the body's prison, two peacock tails frame its base, eying the blind soul's struggle. Will the soul bird learn it's caged: Will the soul bird break free? soar, wing up through the spheres and byond the heavens? *Inspired by the Bird Mosaic in Jerusalem     Prayer   How does an unbeliever pray? Yet I do. Some know God in halogen-bright blinding white light with black, black shadows. But I see grey. 'Glory to God for dappled things', for unclarities ambiguities complexities all, for greys. He will be one with His name: God's wholeness then. But ours?