Uvi Poznansky's Blog, page 216

Come home to 'HOME' and discover yourself

Jaspreet Mann Kanwar is a poet and a story teller. She is the author of The Road in the Sky (and other books.) I am thrilled to find her review of my poetry book, Home:

5.0 out of 5 stars Come home to 'HOME' and discover yourself !, February 19, 2014By Jaspreet Mann Kanwar - See all my reviewsThis review is from: Home (Kindle Edition) "I am water I am fire
I am poem, I inspire
I am silence, sound, a pen stroke
I am blue, a twist of smoke."
Zeev Kachel

When I openedUvi Poznansky's 'Home', I took a deep breath and murmured, 'Oh God, please let this be poetry!' and voila ! It indeed was ! This deeply moving poetry book is a glowing tribute to her father. It includes some heart touching poetry and prose, as well as translated poems written by her father Zeev Kachel. As the title suggests it is a journey that takes you inside shadows lurking somewhere in the deep domains of 'Home'. The collection is a beautifully crafted metaphorical tale about the inhabitants of that home, who display great stoicism during misfortune, often finding solace in poetry. There is a mysterious atmosphere as you delve deeper into a world of darkness and pain, wrought with silence and solace. When she says, 'Here, at last, is my father", one can sense the intensity of emotion in that seemingly simple sentence,it shakes you and leaves you at the brink of a personal memory of irreversible loss. This incredible book touched my soul.
"Don't open your eyes
Try not to see
Things are no longer
Where things ought to be..." Need I say more? An exceptionally crafted book by an amazing writer.

Sibling Rivalry

A lovely review from a listener to the audiobook edition of A Favorite Son

5.0 out of 5 stars Sibling Rivalry, February 18, 2014By Jennifer Garcia "itlnbrt" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   Amazon Verified PurchaseThis was a lovely story written about a set of twins fighting for the birthright. Of course the one born first got it, and the second one spent his life jealous of it and finally tricked his brother out of it.

It was beautifully written and flowed so well. I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. The narrator was great and did a wonderful job with the voices and narration.

Not with a rambling, but with a roar

I love interviewing the interviewer, so I invited Ashley Fontainne--the author of The Lie, Ramblings of a Mad Southern Woman, and other books--to appear in my Guest corner this week. Here, you will find her interviewing me in her last show on The WriteStuff, a year ago today. We ended it not with a rambling, but with a roar! She brought me in for this special episode, to talk about Apart From Love, Home, my sculptures and paintings, the new possibilities of publishing in this new Indie era, and more. 

Come take a listen:

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Let evil recoil on those who slander me

I glance at the serrated edge of the rocks, which rise against the blueish black heavens, and doubt enters my heart. Ghostly shapes loom before me out of the yawning hole of darkness. I imagine them to be a swarm of scaly lizards, slumbering fitfully around the king’s camp. In a snap, they may pounce upon the intruders, upon us.The feeling is so daunting that it brings me to my knees. “Hear my prayer, oh God,” I whisper. “Listen to me, listen to the my words. Strangers are attacking me. Ruthless men seek my life.”I sense the eyes of my fighters upon me. Have they heard me? If so, what is the impact of my words? One by one they fall to their knees and press their hands together, which tells me one thing: there is a great power in prayer. I should use it more often. It works for me. It works better than any other skill I have used as an entertainer.At the risk of having Saul detect where we are, I raise my voice, not only because my heart is hammering in me, it is bursting open—but also because my men must hear this, loud and clear. They must believe in our cause. So with great fervor I come to a blast, “Let evil recoil on those who slander me.” And my fighters echo me, word for word. “Let evil recoil on those who slander me.”
David in Rise to Power
My reptilian paper sculpture
♥ New release! ♥Rise to Power★ Ebook ★ Print ★Audiobook coming soon

Twisted minds

Just discovered a lovely new review for my book Twisted, the title says it all:

5.0 out of 5 stars Twisted minds., February 17, 2014By Katina - See all my reviewsAmazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)This review is from: Twisted (Kindle Edition)So many perspectives brought to life. The words written bring the reader to a world and certain level they had never imagined before.

Why can't we put ten stars here?

Bonnie Bernard is the author of paranormal/weird fiction, with several books including Road Rash, Rest Inn Piece, and Backfire. I am thrilled to find her review of A Favorite Son:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why can't we put ten stars here?, February 17, 2014By BonnieAmazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)This review is from: A Favorite Son (Kindle Edition) I gave it a five star, but I would give it more if more were available. This novella is GOLDEN! It's a story from the old testament - done with a quirky, modern spin. Now...if you're like me, religion isn't your thing. Fret not, this story isn't religious. It's more like a historical snapshot based in a world that both used to exist...and exists now. I won't say any more, because part of the fun of this story is discovering the surprises on your own.
Suffice it to say, A Favorite Son hooked me. I'm on to the next book by this author.

Recommended for every human being on planet earth...especially those with a vivid imagination. :)

Saul has killed his thousands

The life of David has numerous hair-raising moments. One of them is the slaying Goliath, after which the daughters of Israel come singing his praise. They do it with adoring voices that hide the horrific meaning of the words, words that glorify slaughter on the battlefield. Here is this moment, in the voice of David:

But now I realize one thing: I must be coming out of a stupor. I realize this because only now do I pay attention to what it is these girls around me are singing. The song has started in soft tones just a few minutes ago, and now that I hear it, I take note of the words, "Saul has killed his thousands, and David his tens of thousands! Tens of thousands! Tens of thousands! Tens of thousands!”Which of course is wrong on both accounts. The blood on my hands means I am the slayer of Goliath—but for sure it does not amount to taking the lives of tens of thousands souls. And as for the king, I doubt he has made his way into the battlefield at all, because with his military experience he must stay out there, to oversee the movement of our forces from afar, and direct them to go here or there. So in truth, he has killed not a single soul.
Take a listen to the prolific David George, the independent film director and voice talent, who narrates the audiobook edition of this story:

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David knows that this song will enrage the king, and awaken his jealousy. The next time he is brought before Saul, it is the king who does a strange 'reprise' of the song:
Then Saul does the most incredible thing: he hums a tune. in my opinion, it is quite a catchy one! Even so, I have never known him to be particularly musical. On his lips, the notes are bungled. Not only are they out of step with the way you expect to hear them—but they impart a flavor, the bitter flavor of jealousy. The words sound vague, they are barely expressed—but everyone around us knows what is rattling in his throat.“Saul has killed his thousands, and David his tens of thousands...”Is that a threat, glinting in his eyes? I tell myself it isn’t, it cannot be, and promptly forget all about it—until much later.
Take a listen:

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The king is so jealous that David is forced to flee, and he tries to go to the enemy stronghold, the city of Gath, which is where the Philistine advisers perform their own 'reprise' of the song, mocking him: 
Meanwhile, both his advisers take turns jeering at me, flapping the wings of fat under their arms, and raising the pitch of their voices from one phrase to another. “Saul has slain his thousands—”“And David—”“And David—”“Oh, yes, David! What about him?”“Let’s sing his praise, let’s sing a hymn—”“For the king of the land—”“He’s so bad—”“Let him reign—”“It’s plain, he has slain—”“With his own bloody hands—”“Down there in the sands—”“With barely a stain—”“He has slain—”“Thousands?”“No, no! Don’t you know? He’s stronger than Saul!”“Stronger than everyone, big and small!”“He’s slain tens of thousands!”“Our walls shake, shake and fall!”This performance makes everyone burst into laughter. Some of them step forward from behind their podiums, others slide off their benches. One by one, they come down to the center of the floor, and start hopping all about, faster and faster around the circular hearth, and shout my name. The hall fills with echoes of the original tune, performed with a twist of mockery, which makes my blood boil. 
Take a listen to a passage from this third reprise:
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Over generations of art, the song "Saul has slain his thousands" has inspired numerous paintings depicting the strange scene, where David, surrounded by cheering girls, is carrying the blood-stained, impaled head of Goliath over his head. The writing of Rise to Power I have been inspired by the way numerous artists depicted this strange moment:

★ Hot new release! ★Rise to Power★ Ebook ★ Print ★Audiobook coming soon

A beautifully written book

Joan P. Lane is a Jamaican born author of mystery and suspense. Her book, The Tangled Web, is a story of international web of intrigue, nuder, and romance. I am thrilled to find her review of my novel, Apart From Love:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully written book, February 15, 2014By Joan P. Ashley "J.P. Lane" (Gainesville, FL, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)This review is from: Apart From Love (Kindle Edition) Apart From Love is the story of three people thrown together by unusual circumstances. An attractive middle aged man meets an uneducated teenage girl in an ice cream parlor. He is seduced by her and ends up marrying her much to the distress of his sisters and his son who returns home after a stint in Europe to find not only a step mother his own age, but that his mother, a concert pianist who his father led him to believe was always on tour, is instead in a nursing home in the last stages of a rare form of Alzheimer's disease.

Uvi Poznansky's words are like brushstrokes, painting a picture of these three tormented people and their environment in exquisite detail. She opens their hearts, their innermost thoughts to her reader, and shows the horror of Alzheimer's when father and son visit Theresa, his now ex-wife, in the nursing home. Despite the fact that she is completely incapacitated, Theresa hangs like a dark shadow over the new wife who feels she can never measure up to her.

Told by Ben the son and Anita the young wife, Apart From Love is a touching and unforgettable story of family conflict. I highly recommend it to readers of this genre.

The Writing Process

First I would like to thank Carol Fragale Brill for inviting me to join this blog hop, with a focus on the topic of the writing process. 
Carol is the author of two novels, PEACE BY PIECE and CAPE MAYBE, an Amazon Women's Fiction Bestseller. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Her fiction received recognition from Poets and Writers and was a reader’s favorite for The Best of Philadelphia Stories. Her works have also appeared in Wide Array, New York Journal of Books, the Press of Atlantic City, and various online e-zines and business journals. You can find her at these links: Amazon, Facebook, Blog, Goodreads, New York Journal of Books.
Here is what Carol asked me to tell you about:
What am I working on? 
I find great delight in producing my newest novel, Rise to Power, in an audiobook edition (in addition to its bestseller kindle edition and the print edition.) I am working with David George, a man of many talents, who is an independent film director and the narrator for this book. His voice is truly magnificent in all its nuances, which makes the story spring to life. 
Take a listen:
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In parallel to this I am designing the audiobook cover. For the audio cover I selected one of my watercolors for a backdrop, over which I positioned the head of Bernini's David. I love the dynamic expression, the effort it imparts both physically and mentally. This, to me, is the essence of this wonderfully complex character. Set against the tension between cool and warm colors, intense and loose pigments, here is an ambitious man trying to figure out how to take charge of his life, and how to make a mark on history.
How does my work differ from others of its genre? 
In Rise to Power, I am exploring the biblical story of David, but not with religious reverence. Rather, I am interested in the drama of his life. His is a struggle we can all feel inside us. Can he find an inner balance between conflicting drives: his ambition for the crown, his determination to survive the conflict with Saul, and his longing for purity, for a touch of the divine, as expressed so lyrically in his psalms and music?. David is famous for bringing his kingdom from the brink of annihilation to a prosperous age, a renaissance. With all his gifts, he is indeed a renaissance man. This is his story as you have never heard it before: from the king himself, telling the unofficial version, the one he never allowed his court scribes to recount. In his mind, history is written to praise the victorious—but at the last stretch of his illustrious life, he feels an irresistible urge to tell the truth. In the first volume of the series, David gives you a fascinating account of his early years, culminating with a tribal coronation. Rooted in ancient lore, his is a surprisingly modern memoir.Why do I write what I do?
This may seem strange to you, but my characters demand of me that I write what they think, feel, and sense. They spring to life from my ink, and I have to chase them around with my pen, capturing their thoughts as fast as I can.
How does my writing process work? 
In any task you undertake, you often hear the advice: start at the beginning, continue down the middle, and finish at the end. Writing is no different. Problem is, as you advance diligently down that path, you may find–to your surprise–that you are getting better, more proficient at your craft. Suddenly the opening of this chapter sounds so much catchier than the previous one; and the ending more powerful. You must constantly re-evaluate and rework previous chapters. So in my opinion, the process of writing is cyclical. By the time I completed the last chapter of my novel, Apart From Love, I knew I had to discard–or at least, rewrite and restructure–the first chapter.
This, then, is the first page of the first chapter, in which Ben is about to return–reluctantly–to his childhood home, and to a contentious relationship with his father:“About a year ago I sifted through the contents of my suitcase, and was just about to discard a letter, which my father had written to me some time ago. Almost by accident my eye caught the line, I have no one to blame for all this but myself, which I had never noticed before, because it was written in an odd way, as if it were a secret code, almost: upside down, in the bottom margin of the page, with barely a space to allow any breathing.
The words left some impression in my memory. I almost wished he were next to me, so I could not only listen to him, but also record his voice saying that.
I imagined him back home, leaning over his desk, scrawling each letter with the finest of his pens with great care, as if focusing through a thick magnifying glass. The writing was truly minute, as if he had hated giving away even the slightest hint to a riddle I should have been able to solve on my own. I detested him for that. And so, thinking him unable to open his heart to me, I could never bring myself to write back. In hindsight, that may have been a mistake.Even so, I am only too happy to agree with him: the blame for what happened in our family is his. Entirely his. If not for his actions ten years ago, I would never have run away to Firenze, to Rome, to Tel Aviv. And if not for his actions a couple of weeks ago, this frantic call for me to come back and see him would never have been made.And so I find myself standing here, on the threshold of where I grew up, feeling utterly awkward. I knock, and a stranger opens the door. The first thing that comes to mind: what is she doing here? The second thing: she is young, much too young for him. The third: her hair. Red.”The blog hop continues next week with these wonderful authors:
Bathsheba Dailey is a single mother of three beautiful girls, she has just recently graduated business school. She is a lover of the outdoors, hunting, fishing or just listening to the water sing me the enchanting songs of life. She has suffered abuse since the age of five but has not let it destroy the person she was meant to be. She believes that we all make our mistakes and learn from them in out own way and/or time. Writing is what keeps her sanity. You can find her at Amazon, Facebook and Twitter.
Ia Uaro was a published author at 17 and used the proceeds to help fund her university studies, during which time she was active in aero-modelling, martial arts, mountaineering, speleology... and studied petroleum seismology among her music-playing friends. After her graduation she worked with French, Norwegian and American geophysical companies, besides being a volunteer translator. In Sydney since 1995, She is now a mum who does several kinds of volunteer work, assesses manuscripts, reviews books, interviews authors and writes real-life socio fiction. You can find her at Sydney’s Song and at her website.

His side of the bed is empty

"Later, when I wake up, it takes me a while to grasp where I am, and even longer to figure out that I’ve lost time, that time has passed. The last thing I remember is like, making breakfast for him—and now, somehow, it’s late afternoon.

I’m lying here on my side, with the bedside lamp shedding a dim light behind me. I can tell that his side of the bed is empty. Why am I here? How did I get here? Why am I so dazed, so confused?"
My watercolor painting, untitled
Treat yourself to a giftListen to voices of Anita and Ben:★ Audiobook ★ Ebook ★ Print ★