This week's poem is Susan Tichy's "Letter from Palestine," published in Beloit Poetry Journal (one of my favorite journals -- they send the nicest rejections)! (Just so you know, the above link will open up a PDF.)
Susan Tichy's debut in 1983 was an amazing collection of poems, The Hands In Exile, the bulk of which detail her experiences on a kibbutz in Israel. Never before had I read poems that so accurately convey the ever-present fear in Israel that whatever normalcy there is could shatter at any moment -- in poems!!! I highly recommend the National Poetry Prize-winning collection and am so grateful to Cyrus Cassells for telling me about it.
"Letter from Palestine" is not actually from the collection, but I imagine that the person described within it is someone she met during that time, whom she hears from later. (I don't know whether this is true at all.) Like many of Tichy's poems (and she's written great collections since then, though not on Israel-Palestine), I learn a lot from this one. Here, that the speaker is far away from Palestine and remembering and imagining are important aspects of the poem. (This teaches me something because I often feel like I must place myself in Israel/the West Bank in the poems, that the poem lacks some documentary credibility if I don't place it there.) The occupation and its costs are fully part of the poem, but the focus is drawn tight around specific individuals. The costs are beautifully portrayed here, suggesting the many through the one. (Oh writing about wonderful poems is so difficult. Go read it! It's lovely!)
In other news, one of my Israel-Palestine poems was accepted by a really cool online journal that I'm very proud to be a part of. My poem should be published in February, so I'll let you know more about that when it happens.
Have a peaceful week.
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