At the End of Sleep

By Tal Nitzán

With At the End of Sleep, an anthology selected from the past decade of Israeli poet Tal Nitzán’s work, one of Hebrew poetry’s most powerful and acclaimed contemporary voices is finally given her English-language due. Reaching beyond lyricism for its own sake with her lucid, sharp, and occasionally ferocious verse, Nitzán illuminates sexuality and struggle, protests the abuse of power, and plumbs the depths of the Israeli condition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Restless Books
• Release date: Jun 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781632060037

Tal Nitzán

The recipient of numerous awards, including the Women Writers’ Prize, the Culture Minister's Prize for Beginning Poets, and the Prime Minister's Prize for Writers, Tal Nitzán is a poet, editor, and translator of Hispanic literature. She has edited three anthologies and published six poetry books, including Doméstica (2002), An Ordinary Evening (2006), Café Soleil Bleu (2007), The First to Forget (2009), and Look at the Same Cloud Twice (2012). Her poetry has been translated into over twenty languages and appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines such as Modern Poetry in Translation, Habitus, Zeek, and Bridges. Nitzán has resided in Buenos Aires, Bogotá, and New York, and currently lives in Tel Aviv.

Book preview

DOMÉSTICA

(2002)

In the Time of Cholera

Facing one another

we turn our backs to the world’s calamities.

Behind our closed eyes and curtains

both heat and war

erupted at once.

The heat will calm down first,

the faint breeze

won't bring back

the boys who have been shot,

won't cool down

the wrath of the living.

Even if it tarry,

the fire will come,

many waters won't quench etc.*

Our arms as well

can only reach our own bodies:

We are a small crowd

incited to bite,

to cling to each other

to barricade ourselves in bed

while in the ozone above us

a mocking smile

cracks wide open.

* Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it (Song of Solomon, 8:7).

—T.N. & V.E.

Something quiet

Nothing is quieter

than blows inflicted upon others,

nothing threatens less

the satisfied soul's calm.

The defeat in their eyes is mute,

their arms

drop quietly.

What a pleasant silence.

Except for a tiny piercing sound

that bothers mainly in the mornings

but can be dimmed easily

by the relaxing rustle

of newspaper pages.

Before they're buried under ruins

they disappear under the Entertainment Section

the half full cup of coffee

the slamming door

in our house

that stands firm.

—T.N. & V.E.

Nocturne

Short is the pleasure and long is the night,

daunting and barren and deaf.

For one moment more the body clasps tight,

then hides in the sheets by itself.

Embrace will unravel and darkness will creep

between limbs, and then under the skin

the creature of ocean will stir from its sleep,

there is nowhere to hide from its grin.

A shriek from the street blasts in from below

as though the Peugeot that has never let go

must scream its alarm at this hour.

And he who would sleep, would forget, would subside

will not see how the watery eye opens wide

and the beast of the deep will devour.

—T.N. & V.E.

Domestica

One shirt was folded after another:

a tiny shirt for teddy-bear,

for father-bear a large-large shirt,

for mother-bear, neither large, nor petit.

Teddy-bear went out for a walk,

will be back late.

Father-bear went further away,

may be back, maybe tomorrow,

maybe afterward.

Mother is here,

both early and late.

And the shriek that pierces the air –

was shrieked by a cat downstairs.

And the figure leaning out toward the void –

may have wanted to hang laundry on a rope.

—T.N.

The Voyager:

Into the garden*

If only I