Haim Gouri, the last poet of Israeli’s founding generation, died one week ago today. He wrote of the terrible sacrifice of war, and of memory and camaraderie.
Born in Tel Aviv in 1923, Gouri was a poet, novelist, documentary film maker, journalist, and the author of a book on the Jerusalem trial of Adolf Eichmann.
During World War II, Gouri joined the elite strike force of the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary force operating during Mandate Palestine, called the ‘Palmach.’ He was sent to Hungary to help holocaust survivors come to Palestine.
Gouri’s first book of poetry, published in 1949, was heavily influenced by his experience in the Palmach during the war of 1948. His later books become more abstract.
Today’s episode features poems from the volume Words in My Lovesick Blood, translated by Stanley Chyet.
This is an excerpt from the poem “Account”:
And again, as always in the Land of Israel, the stones boil,
earth gives no cover.
And again my brothers call out from the depths.
Texts:
Haim Gouri, Words in My Lovesick Blood, translated, Stanley Chyet, Wayne State University, 1996.
Previous podcast:
Haim Gouri’s Piyyut for Rosh Hashanah
Music:
רונה קינן – אני גר כעת בספר ישן
עינב ג׳קסון כהן – עקרתי אל עיר אחרת
ארז לב ארי – אולי זו רק פתיחה למשהו אחר
Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90
