Tonight we’ll end 2014 with a blast of fire; we hear Dahlia Ravikovitch’s own recitation of her poem ‘Dress of Fire,’ which host Marcela Sulak translates for us (using Chana and Ariel Bloch’s translation). We also listen to some of Ravikovitch’s poems set to music.

Born in the Ramat Gan suburb of Tel Aviv in 1936, Ravikovitch wrote fiction, children’s books, and 12 collections of poetry, which have been awarded many literary prizes. After the 1982 Lebanese War, she began writing protest poetry. Two of her most powerful are ‘Hovering at a Low Altitude,’ and ‘You Can’t Kill a Baby Twice.’ She was active in the Israeli peace movement until she died in 2005 of sudden heart irregularities.

Texts:

The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry, edited by J. D. McClatchy (1996).

Hovering at a Low Altitude: The Collected Poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch, translated by Chana Bloch & Chana Kronfeld. W.W. Norton & Co. (2009).

Music:

‘Tmuna’ [picture] by Dahlia Ravikovitch, performed by Yehudith Ravitz

‘Lebeitech shuvi’ [Return home] by Dahlia Ravikovitch, performed by Chava Alberstein

Producer: Laragh Widdess
Technical producer: Lior Peleg