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It’s summer holiday season, and most of us will probably be asked when we arrive at the airport, “Did you pack it yourself?” – referring, of course, to our luggage. Israeli poet Orit Gidali answers her interrogation like this:

“Of all the questions
to ask: Did you pack it yourself?
Yes, by myself.
It was hard, I said,
but it is harder to fear that it will never come.
I am not beautiful, you see,
and the heart is the size of a fist.”

Today’s podcast features the newly-released collection, Twenty Girls to Envy Me: Selected Poems of Orit Gidali, translated and introduced by none other than our host Marcela Sulak. Gidali’s poetry appears to focus on domestic issues like airport questions and Shabbat preparations, but Marcela explains that she’s actually reworking the geopolitical on an individual scale. Gidali has published three collections of poetry, as well as a children’s book.

Text:
Twenty Girls to Envy Me: Selected Poems of Orit Gidali, translated by Marcela Sulak. University of Texas Press, 2016.

Music:
Eshet Chayil (Traditional)
Keren Peles – Shir LeAsaf
Philip Glass – Metamorphosis 1

Producer: Laragh Widdess
Technical producer: Alex Benish