Agi Mishol’s latest book of poetry, Less Like a Dove, is published in English translation this month. Host Marcela Sulak reads a selection of poems from the collection, including “Holocaust, Remembrance, Independence” in honor of Israeli Independence Day, which begins tonight.

“How we flew –
Not from Gadera to Rehovot or up the Castel
en route to Jerusalem, like in those dreams, but
outside of the stratosphere: My father, myself
and that blurry one called Agnes,
who in nineteen fifty changed her name
to Agi, and since then this hollow girl has tailed
my father, who was her father as well.”

Agi Mishol was born in Transylvania, and is the daughter of Holocaust survivors who arrived in Israel in 1950. She lives in an agricultural community and directs the Helicon School of Poetry in Tel Aviv, where she teaches creative writing.

Hear our Lag B’Omer podcast featuring Agi Mishol from May 2015.

Hear last year’s Independence Day podcast featuring Amos Oz’s “A Tale of Love and Darkness.”

Joanna Chen will launch her translations of Mishol at Bar-Ilan’s Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing Conference, which lasts from May 29-31. It will feature David Grossman, Agi Mishol, and Matti Friedman, along with several other international writers and translators.

Text:
Less Like a Dove by Agi Mishol. Translated by Joanna Chen. Shearsman Press, 2016.

Music:
Army Orchestra – IDF March
Yehezkel Raz – en si bémol
HaAchim VeHaAchiot – God Pities Kindergarden Children
Podington Bear – LaDiDay
Noa Fort – HaSod (lyrics by Agi Mishol)

Producer: Laragh Widdess
Technical producer: Alex Benish