Hovering at a Low Altitude: The Collected Poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch

by Dahlia Ravikovitch, Chana Kronfeld (Translator), Dahlia Ravikovitch

"[Ravikovitch’s] song is both ancient and new, and it is unutterably poignant." ―Stanley Kunitz In poems about fathers and daughters, men and women, kings and their subjects, the precarious position of women and the plight of Palestinians under the Occupation, Dahlia Ravikovitch articulates the painful asymmetries of power. The extraordinary stylistic range of her poetry reveals her mastery of the verbal art. from “Clockwork Doll” I was a clockwork doll, but then That night I turned round and around And fell on my face, cracked on the ground, And they tried to piece me together again. Then once more I was a proper doll And all my manner was nice and polite. But I became damaged goods that night, A fractured twig poised for a fall.

Genres: Poetry, Jewish, Israel

272 pages, Hardcover

First published April 27, 2009

About the author

Dahlia Ravikovitch (Hebrew: דליה רביקוביץ) was an Israeli poet and peace activist who born in Ramat Gan on November 27, 1936. She learned to read and write at the age of three. When Dahlia was six, her father was run over and killed by a drunken driver.

After completing her service in the Israel Defense Forces, she studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She worked as a journalist and high school teacher. She translated WB Yeats, TS Eliot, Edgar Allan Poe, and Mary Poppins into Hebrew. Ravikovitch was active in the Israeli peace movement. From her home in central Tel Aviv she collaborated with artists, musicians and public figures seeking peace, equality and social justice.

Ravikovitch's first poems appeared in the Hebrew language poetry journal Orlogin (Hourglass), edited by Avraham Shlonsky, and it was Shlonsky who encouraged her to pursue writing as a career. Her first book of poetry, The Love of an Orange, published in 1959, established her as one of Israel's leading young native-born poets. Ravikovitch published ten volumes of poetry in her native Hebrew. In addition to poetry, she contributed prose works (including three collections of short stories) and children's literature, and translated poetry into Hebrew. Many of her poems were set to music. Her best known poem is Booba Memukenet (English: Clockwork Doll).

Her poems are taught in schools, and several were turned into popular songs. Her poetry has been translated into 23 languages.

Reviews

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are fine, stirring poems, steeped in Old Testament weirdness that Ravikovitch somehow magically makes relevant and piercing. She was apparently a huge fan of the hapax l. The later poems tend to be much more literal and politically focused (she was a peace activist and champion of Palestinian rights) or autobiographical (her son), and I liked those far less. The exhaustive footnotes are often intrusive and distracting, too, but can't stop the works themselves from being outright phenomenal.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Searing poetry both personal and political, approachable even when steeped in Biblical references and phrases, partly thanks to the light touch footnotes of the two Chanas who translated.
Ravikovitch’s The Dress, from her 1969 collection The Third Book, contains what might be an epigraph for her body of work:

You know, she said, they made you a dress of fire.
Remember how Jason’s wife burned in her dress?
It was Medea, she said, Medea did that to her.
You’ve got to be careful, she said,
they made you a dress that glows like an ember,
that burns like coals of fire.

Are you going to wear it, she said, don’t wear it.
It’s not the wind whistling, it’s the poison seething.
You’re not even a princess, what can you do to Medea?
Can’t you tell one sound from another, she said,
it’s not the wind whistling.

Remember, I told her, that time when I was six?
They shampooed my hair and I went out into the street.
The scent of shampoo trailed after my me like a cloud.
Then the wind and the rain made me ill.
I didn’t yet know how to read Greek tragedies,
But that fragrance filled the air and I was very ill.
Now I can tell that perfume was unnatural.

What will become of you, she said,
they made you a burning dress.
They made me a burning dress, I said. I know.
So why are you standing here, she said, you ought to beware.
Don’t you know what that means, a burning dress?

I know, I said, but not to beware.
The scent of that perfume confuses me.
I said to her: No one has to agree with me,
I don’t put my trust in Greek tragedy.
* * *

But the dress, she said, the dress is on fire.
What are you saying, I shouted, what are you saying?
I’m not wearing a dress at all, can’t you see
what’s burning is me.

[Matt Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Using an impressive range of tone and influences, Dahlia Ravikovich composes poems that encompass every beauty, grief, lament, and horror that humanity and inhumanity have to offer.

[Jennifer Rossetti · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.83

[Dustyn Hessie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This translation was absolutely horrid. In anthologies the syntax bonds well together when reading Ravikovich, but this was an utter Fail. At least I got a get a good dose of Ravikovich's genius in the anthologies.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read my review on New York Journal of Books: http://goo.gl/KGdqi