So Many Things are Yours
Published on 4. January 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
128 pages
978-1-938890-91-8 (ISBN)
Description
The poet and Talmud scholar examines Jewish texts, sexuality, and human vulnerability in poems that brim with wonder, sadness, sensuality, and humor.
Kosman's second volume in English explores Jewish texts -Bible, Talmud, midrash - alongside bodies, physical desires, military experiences, even a refrigerator. Demons and fantasy enter these poems; so do politics, so does God. These are not religious poems in a conventionally liturgical, "inspirational" sense; yet they point to the big questions that religion asks: about love, hate, desire, violence, transgression, disappointment.
Kosman's second volume in English explores Jewish texts -Bible, Talmud, midrash - alongside bodies, physical desires, military experiences, even a refrigerator. Demons and fantasy enter these poems; so do politics, so does God. These are not religious poems in a conventionally liturgical, "inspirational" sense; yet they point to the big questions that religion asks: about love, hate, desire, violence, transgression, disappointment.
Reviews / Votes
" I've long admired the poetry of Admiel Kosman, one of the leading poets of Israel, yes, certainly, but truly of the world... The passions are real in his poetry, and send a current through his vision of history, ancient to now, as if the Bible itself could dream. In these expert translations by Lisa Katz, Kosman's poems come alive in English, al dente, with a delicious firmness and urgency, a tart quickness full of pleasure." - Joshua Weiner, Tikkun" Admiel Kosman's poems are surreal and real, playful and serious, simple and complex. Reading them recalls F. Scott Fitzgerald's comment: 'The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.' In these poems, replace 'function' with 'sing,' and rejoice." - Natasha Saje, author of Vivarium and Windows and Doors: A Poet Reads Literary Theory
" Kosman is called to teach: he is the poet rebbe who patiently, bravely, instructs his reader about the obstacles that must be overcome and the risks that must be taken if one is truly to encounter the Other, that person who is wholly apart from the self." - Maeera Y. Schreiber, AJS Review
More details
Series
Edition
Bilingual edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Massachusetts
United States
Edition type
Bilingual edition
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 201 mm
Width: 150 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
159 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-938890-91-8 (9781938890918)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Poet and scholar Admiel Kosman is the author of nine books of Hebrew poetry, six academic books on Talmud and Midrash, and two bilingual Hebrew-English collections, So Many Things Are Yours (forthcoming, Zephyr Press, 2022) and Approaching You in English (Zephyr, 2011), both translated by Lisa Katz. Born in Haifa, Israel, he has lived in Berlin since 2003. He is Professor of Jewish Studies at Potsdam University, and academic director of the Abraham Geiger College, the first Reform rabbinical seminary to open in Continental Europe since the Holocaust.
Translator and poet Lisa Katz has published two collections of her own poems and translated several volumes of Hebrew poetry. Late Beauty, by Tuvia Ruebner, which she co-translated with Shahar Bram, was a finalist for the 2017 National Jewish Book Award in Poetry. She also translated The Absolute Reader, a chapbook by Miri Ben Simhon (Toad Press, 2020); Approaching You in English, co-translated with Shlomit Naim-Naor (Zephyr, 2011); and Look There, by Agi Mishol (Graywolf, 2006). She lives in Jerusalem.
Translator and poet Lisa Katz has published two collections of her own poems and translated several volumes of Hebrew poetry. Late Beauty, by Tuvia Ruebner, which she co-translated with Shahar Bram, was a finalist for the 2017 National Jewish Book Award in Poetry. She also translated The Absolute Reader, a chapbook by Miri Ben Simhon (Toad Press, 2020); Approaching You in English, co-translated with Shlomit Naim-Naor (Zephyr, 2011); and Look There, by Agi Mishol (Graywolf, 2006). She lives in Jerusalem.