The Spectacular Difference

From the publication of her first book in 1967 until her death in 1984, the modest and soft-spoken woman known to her Hebrew readers simply as Zelda received an extraordinary amount of public attention. Her six books of verse were honored by Israel's most prestigious literary awards and have remained bestsellers beyond the poet's lifetime. Marcia Falk, a well-known poet in her own right, was a good friend of Zelda's and a frequent visitor to her Jerusalem home. Fulfilling a promise she made long ago to her friend, Falk presents here the first major compilation of Zelda's poetry in English translation. A devoutly religious Jew descended from a line of prominent Hasidic rabbis, Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky inhabited the world of ultra-Orthodoxy her entire life. Her utterly unique poetry, which draws abundantly from classical Jewish texts, portrays at the same time a world of personal mystical imagery - the ""strange plant,"" ""enchanted bird,"" ""black rose,"" ""golden butterfly."" Marcia Falk's sensitive translations, lucid introduction, and comprehensive notes to the poems reveal the power of Zelda's poetry to create out of inner experience strikingly original pictures that reach beyond the borders of tradition to redeem pain and celebrate life.