The Poetry of Avraham Ben-Yitzhak

Avraham Ben-Yitzhak was the great poet of silence. He never published much - in fact, the poems you can read here, in my English translations of the Hebrew originals, constitute all the poetry that he ever published in his lifetime, with the exception of the one that he repudiated after certain changes were made by the editor against his will.

This site also contains a short essay on the life of the man, which I wrote in 1994 or so. Sadly, the essay is nowhere near as good as I thought it was when I wrote it, but it does cover the basic biographical details of Ben-Yitzhak's life. A more concise biography is available on the Institute for Translation of Hebrew Literature site, here.

Although my Hebrew is fluent, I am not a professional translator, and it may well be that there are problems with the translations. If you find anything glaringly wrong, or have any other comments, please do contact me to say so.

References:

Avraham Ben Yitzhak - Complete Poetry
Edited by Hanan Haver, Hotzet HaKibbutz HaMeuchad / Sifrei Siman Kriah, 1992 - the edition I used for the translations, and for much (not all) of the information in the essay.
Meeting with a Poet - Leah Goldberg
(originally published in Hebrew as 'P'gishah Im Meshorer') - I read this once but don't have a copy, and would love to hear of details of this book in any language, preferably Hebrew.

Links:

Thanks:

I am very grateful to Elisha Porat, for his kind comments, and also to Glenda Abramson of the Oxford Center for Hebrew Studies for her many constructive suggestions. Four years after I first put this site on the internet, I *still* have not yet made nearly enough of the changes that have been suggested :(, and all errors are my responsibility only.

If you have any comments, queries or suggestions, please email me: waz@easynet.co.uk

This page created on 24th August 1998, last edited 3rd November, 2002