Helen Bar-Lev,
IL
SKETCHBOOK
correspondent report for August 2008
It is already August
and the long-stemmed quill with small white flowers, our first
autumn flower, can be seen in the mountains. It is the only
flower, I believe, which first flowers, then, when the flowers
have dried, the leathery leaves appear and remain around
throughout the winter. They grow close together so they are like
white spears pointing heavenwards. Exciting, this passage of the
seasons. And of course, with the coming of September and the new
school year, the pre-teens and teenagers who have been sitting
and chattering loudly in the children’s playground adjacent to
our home until the wee hours of the morning, will rewind their
clocks back to normal hours…
Next week Johnmichael and I are taking a week’s tour of
Bulgaria, the first time either of us have been there, though my
daughter-in-law is Bulgarian.
A reminder please: Deadline for submissions to Voices Israel
2009 Anthology is 7 October. Please email to me up to four
poems, maximum of 40 lines each, with contact information on
each poem and a 7-line resume (bio) by then if you wish to be
considered for the Anthology.
hbarlev@netvision.net.il
As for our website,
www.cyclamensandswords.com – the next issue
will be online 1 November. We publish three times a year: July,
November, March. Submissions for the November issue are now
closed, but please submit for the March issue. The contest is
open until 30 November. Please peruse the website. We are very
proud of it. Note our chapbook service.
Squill in
Metulla in September by Helen Bar-Lev
Poems from 11 June Workshop
Voices of Israel, Haifa
This month I am finally able to send you some of the poems which
were written at the 11 June workshop of Voices Israel in Haifa:
Presenter: Thilde Fox
Topic: Warming Up With Rhyme and Rhythm
The Way Here
Phyllsie Gross
The traffic jams of
morning
make me dream
the rumble of the engines
smudge the journey
Presenter: Dina
Yehuda
Topic: From the Book of Genesis
Gods truth
Tom Berman
Weaver of myths
primeval
Fooling the generations
“mist from the earth”
“woman from man’s rib created”
Who are you kidding now?
Little Man,
alone in a velvet night universe
of Edens unnumbered
What now of other worlds
Of other myths
Of other
Gods?
Presenter: Tom
Berman
Topic: Animals and Other Beasties
The Dinosaur
David Blumfield
The dinosaur a
wondrous beast
He lived in times gone by
And when he got a tad too hot
He taught himself to fly
Presenter: Rochelle
Mass
Topic: Places and Spaces
Place and Space
Johnmichael
Simon
I write because I
must
and if you ask
from where or to where
let me tell you this
From an English winter
do my tendrils probe
from dour to ice
from showers and muddy paths
from Macs Wellingtons and puddles
From Africa to where we wandered
from gold dust, mine dumps
from picanins barefooted in streets
from guitars plucked and milk bottle trucks
and wild stretches of empty veld
From the border village where I live
where falcons fly, storks and pelicans
darken skies in squadrons of sound
from Lebanon and Damascus nudging my country
into a finger pointing northward
as hopes for peace and shouts of war
mingle and eddy through my curtains
So if you ask from where
or to where I write
let me tell you this
all the places, all the faces
I have ever met are here inside me calling
and whoever calls the most insistent
to him, to her I write today
Presenter: Ruth
Fogelman
Topic: Pantoum
Pantoum
Wendy Blumfield
Lost in the night of
war,
The train winds around the hills,
Night breeze gives no direction
Through the window wafts the perfume of the rose
The train winds around the hills
As light appears afar
Through the window wafts the perfume of the rose,
The people look for direction
As light appears afar
Night breeze gives no direction
The people look for direction
Lost in the night of war
Apologies to all the
other participants whose poems I am not able to include here.
Chapbook, colour cover, b&w illustrations, available for US$7.-
including postage.
Helen Bar-Lev
www.helenbarlev.com
