Cloud-Beam Medley

By Barbara Hantman

Cloud-Beam Medley is Barbara Hantmans fifth book of verse. It is divided into seven chapters that capture diverse thematic categories: Mosaic Memories, Hats Off: In Tribute, From Burden to Bliss, Earths Glow, Nesting, Chuckle and Whimsy and The World So Much With Us! Spanish and Hebrew are represented with a smattering of bilingual poems. The author has tapped her Jewish roots, outstanding men and women (both famous and in her personal circle), awareness of obstacle and triumph, and the beauty and comforts of nature, family life and humor. The book concludes on a serious note, with what Unamuno dubbed the tragic sense of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 22, 2007
• ISBN: 9781469101378

Barbara Hantman

Barbara Hantman graduated magna cum laude from Queens College, and earned a Phi Beta Kappa key and membership in the Education Honor Society while there. She has an M.A. in the Teaching of Language, Literature, Speech and Theatre from Teachers College, Columbia University. Barbara has served a generation of NYC public high school students. Her accomplishments include a fourth book of poetry with Edwin Mellen Press that is fully bilingual in Spanish and English: CAPULLOS DEL ALMA: SOUL BUDS (2004). She has placed in poetry contests sponsored by Performance Poets Association (2001) and the New York Poetry Forum (2003, 2008, 2011). She won first prize in LONE STARS MAGAZINE’s Light of the Stars 2009 Contest for her poem, “The Velvet Toolbox.” Barbara enjoys her role as Corresponding Secretary for the Fresh Meadows Poets, and is proud of her holiday poems, which have appeared in MIDSTREAM MAGAZINE. Other publication credits include FRESHET, POETICA, THE DERONDA REVIEW, MOBIUS, THE CULVERT CHRONICLES, CONCEIT and WOMEN IN JUDAISM: A MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL. Her latest book, CALL OF ABRAHAM’S KIN, (2010) includes a smattering of Spanish and Hebrew bilingual poems. A sampling can be accessed at http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-0069416049/CALL-OF-ABRAHAMS-KIN.aspx. It features poems with Jewish themes, and illustrations by gifted artist, poet and scholar Esther Leiper-Estabrooks of New Hampshire’s “North Country”. For more information, go to www.BarbaraHantman.com. A second book of Jewish-themed poems with Xlibris – BATHSHEBA’S LEVANTINE BOUQUET – is forthcoming.

Book preview

Copyright © 2007 by Barbara Hantman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

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recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission

in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

MOSAIC MEMORIES

When Shabbos Enters the Room

Rosh Chodesh: Festival of Lunar Femininity *

Mensch

Heartfelt Prayer

Jonah’s Task

Truest Acolyte

I Bless You

Lilith: Soul in Exile

Divine Emanations: A Godly Minyan *

Lament of the Shammash *

I.B. Singer: A Childhood *

C. N. Bialik Cento *

HATS OFF: IN TRIBUTE

Vincent’s Testimony *

Edvard Munch: Haunted Dance of Life *

Modigliani: Connoisseur of Almond-Eyed Charmers *

Romare Bearden: Troubadour of Ebony Perspectives *

Joseph Cornell: A Life in Boxes *

Amalie Beer: Philanthropic Salonièr *

Rahel Levin Varnhagen: Convivial Salonièr *

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel: Salonièr Impresario *

Salka Viertel: Salonièr as Savior *

ED: Romantic Recluse *

Mr. Packard: In Memoriam

Dr. J.J.S.

Rose

A Guru in the Family

Lucy

Thomas

Erna

Dr. M.L. King, Jr.

FROM BURDEN TO BLISS

Cento of Ballad Sentiments *

Lonesome-Hearted Songster: A Childhood

Lowly One, Most High *

Soldier of Fortitude

What’s Inside Me

Inter-Borough Flow

Spinster and Babes

Earned Self-Esteem

Lucy Cento: Vocation, Artist *

Shelcha *

Shelach: A Love Poem from Jacob to Rachel *

Kirchman Cento: A Love Poem *

Beloved, Accept Me *

I Do Believe in Love

You Are . . .

My Heart Leaps Up . . .

Birthday Heart

To a Worthy Love

A un enamorado digno

Wedding Day!

EARTH’S GLOW

Seasonal Tanka

Jade-Brushed Songster

Flora in Autumn

Blessed Snowscape

Turn Off the Faucet!

A Floral Romance

Simple Blessings

Spiritual Garden

Jardín espiritual

Haiku for Mother’s Day 2000

Mother Maple’s Farewell

Seventy-Eight Years as Landscaper

Ethan Allen Express

Image Echoes

NESTING

Lincoln Place

Morris and Lena

Sarah Leah

Father

Smiling Eyes

Fifty-Two Years of Motherhood

Love Is a Trio

Abecedarian for Mother’s Day

Mother-Daughter Tanka

Parkchester Summer Sunday

There is a Place: Hay un lugar . . .

CHUCKLE AND WHIMSY

Haikus for Jews *

Pre-Passover Haiku

Lunchtime Limericks

Short Verse Form Sampler

The Vicejag of Flake

Abecedarian Italiano *

Abecedario español *

Feline Fealty

It’s You Nonstop

True Love Lofty and Grand, O!

A Cornucopia of C’s

The Velvet Toolbox

THE WORLD—SO MUCH WITH US!

Slavery in New York *

Upper Crust

The Forgotten Ones *

Shattered Belonging, Flaming Foundation

Two Israeli Holidays in May: The Fallen, The Upright *

Lag B’Omer: Mournful Martyrdom, Blazing Splendor *

Tisha B’Av: Lamentation of the Bereft *

New Year’s 2003

A Peaceful Town

Strange Fruit, This War

Brundibar: Eternal Villain *

Author Biography

DEDICATION

For the precious younger generation—including Melissa, Marc and Alex.

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Rhina Espaillat, award-winning author, for her inspired Spanish revision of A un enamorado digno. Thanks, too, to Sabra Michal Nachmany for her lyrical revision of the Hebrew versions of Simple Blessings and Sarah Leah.

The charming illustrations are courtesy of Robert Dunn, Big Apple poetry impresario, humorist and civil servant.

Thanks also go to the following publications for accepting poems that appear, in this order, in Cloud-Beam Medley:

1.   When Shabbos Enters the Room: FRESHET 2001 (Fresh Meadows Poets anthology)

2.   Heartfelt Prayer: POETICA, July 2006

3.   Truest Acolyte: POETICA, July 2004

4.   I Bless You: MIDSTREAM, Sept./Oct. 2003 & POETICA, March 2004

5.   Lilith: Soul In Exile: PPA LITERARY REVIEW, Volume 8 (Performance Poets Association anthology)

6.   Divine Emanations: A Godly Minyan: POETICA, July 2005

7.   Lament of the Shammash: FRESHET 2007

8.   Joseph Cornell: A Life in Boxes: FRESHET 2006

9.   Mr. Packard: In Memoriam: FRESHET 2004

10.   Dr. J.J.S.: FRESHET 2004

11.   Rose: FRESHET 2003

12.   Shelach: A Love Poem from Jacob to Rachel: FRESHET 2005

13.   Birthday Heart: PPA LITERARY REVIEW, Volume 5

14.   Flora in Autumn: FRESHET 2004

15.   Haiku for Mother’s Day 2000: FRESHET 2002

16.   Smiling Eyes: FRESHET 2005

17.   Lunchtime Limericks: FRESHET 2007

18.   Abecedarian Italiano: FRESHET 2007

19.   It’s You Nonstop: SOUL FOUNTAIN ART & LITERARY JOURNAL, Spring 2004 (Women’s Voices Issue)

20.   Upper Crust: THE NEOVICTORIAN/COCHLEA, Summer-Fall 2004

21. The Forgotten Ones: SOUL FOUNTAIN ART & LITERARY JOURNAL, Spring 2004 (Women’s Voices Issue) & FRESHET 2005

Foreword

Upon reading this fresh new book of deliciously crafted and synesthetic poems, one may find immediate elucidation through its title. Barbara Hantman’s latest collection of poems, entitled Cloud-Beam Medley, strikes me as quite aptly named. The notion of considering a compendium of poems that are gathered under the rubric of the image of sunlight reflecting from the diaphanous surfaces of cloud formations, resounds with implications of intimate, almost religious significance. The possibilities contained in Cloud, a visible body of very fine droplets suspended above us, include the Electron Cloud, which is a collection of precise charged particles, or perhaps we are to recall the 14th century spiritual guidebook, The Cloud of Unknowing, which offers encouragement and counsel, not through knowing but through love.

Each poem, each chapter of the seven that compose this book, retains the characteristic gathering of poetic mists and condensations, and the often subtle glitter, that clouds may contain. The notion of a medley—a combining of different admixtures of emotions, inspirations and visions that the poet expresses—is here presented for the reader to ponder and delight in. The first twelve poems are intricately Hebraic; they offer an array of insights on a cultural plane. The impressions of a seeker/wordsmith are rendered through many historical epochs, from the ethereal invocation of how a religious person appreciates and comprehends the onset of the Torah invocation of Sabbath, to the primordial legends of the pre-Big Bang Lilith and Samael—depictions of