Poetry
ספיח
Not translated into English
Rachel the Poetess · 1927
Opening lines
הַיּוֹם הָלַךְ וְהֶחְשִׁיךְ,
דָּעַךְ הַיוֹם.
זָהָב מוּעָם צֻפּוּ שְׁחָקִים
וְהָרֵי רוֹם.
The day was waning and growing dark,
the day faded away.
Dull gold overlaid the heavens
and the lofty mountains.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from benyehuda.org
Synopsis
Short poems, in a sober, spare language nourished by the Bible, that speak of the earth, water and trees, the Jordan, and of cities, Safed, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv. Love of the land of Israel stands alongside love of people and of biblical figures, and the awareness of a life that passes runs through the book. The poem that gives it its title speaks of fields that no one has ploughed or sown, for which no one has prayed for rain, and which nonetheless yield a grain blessed by the sun instead of thistles.
Context
Her poems had been appearing every week in the daily Davar since the early 1920s, and readers awaited the Friday issue. This first book, of forty-three pages, was published by the newspaper itself; Mineged followed in 1930 and Nevo in 1932; the whole appeared in 1935 under the title Shirat Rachel. Rachel had written in Russian until her arrival and learned Hebrew by listening to the children of a kindergarten in Rehovot. She lies in the Kinneret cemetery, beside the lake.
Who it is for
A slim collection of poems, translated into French under the title Regain, in a bilingual edition; it can be read without preparation.
Prizes and reception
Loved by readers from their first appearance in Davar, her poems made her one of the most striking voices of renewed Hebrew poetry.
Sources for this page 6
The pages consulted to check this page.