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Poet, choreographer, and dance critic Hezy Leskly was born in Israel in 1952 to Czech Holocaust survivors. Host Marcela Sulak reads from the only collection of Leskly’s poetry to be translated into English, Dear Perverts, translated by Adriana Jacobs. Here is the beginning of the poem “I’m six, on a walk with my parents, Saturday late afternoon”:

“My father—the hammer poised above the plate,
My mother—the snake of love,
And I—a girl with a dick;
We set out on the path
traced with my tongue.
When I tried
to eat from the plate
at the edge of the path,
the hammer struck the fingers
of my left hand,
and the snake of love smiled and commanded: “Shpatzirn!”“

Leskly studied photography and dance, and at 22 he settled in the Netherlands, where for seven years he studied multi-media. He returned to Israel in 1980, where for the next ten years he worked as dance critic for a Tel Aviv weekly.

If you want to hear more Leskly, come to Bar-Ilan University on Monday, May 30, where you can hear Adriana Jacobs read these translations at the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing international conference.

Texts:
“I am Six, Traveling with My Parents, Late Saturday Afternoon”; “Biography of the Deputy Manager of a Brush Factory” – Poetry International Rotterdam
“The”; “Reuben and I” – The Ilanot Review

Music:
Yehoram Gaon – Yesh Makom
Ronen Shapira – HaHiyuch (lyrics by Hezy Leskly)
Yonatan Levital & Hila Ruach – Lo Esa LeParis (lyrics by Hezy Leskly)
The Djamchid Sisters – Shiur Ha (lyrics by Hezy Leskly)

Producer: Laragh Widdess
Technical producer: Alex Benish