Thanks to two recent reviews, I’m adding two more poetry books to my to-be-read list. The first is Jerusalem-based poet and translator Peter Cole’s Things on Which I’ve Stumbled, which Daisy Fried has reviewed here. The second is Poets on the Edge, an anthology of contemporary Hebrew poetry selected and translated by Tsipi Keller, which Alicia Ostriker discusses here. Hopefully I’ll get to both books soon, and have something to say about them.
Congratulations to the winners of this year’s Sydney Taylor Book Awards, administered by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) to recognize Jewish children’s and teen literature. If you’re looking for reading options for the younger set, as I always am, the titles honored by this award program provide excellent possibilities. Find out more about this year’s winning books, authors, and illustrators here and here, and follow the exciting blog tour, too.
In The Forward, Ilan Stavans translates (apparently for the first time) three prose poems by Jorge Luis Borges: “To Israel,” “Israel,” and “Israel, 1969.” Quite an interesting find.
Looking for some Chanukah lit? Check out the collection of Chanukah poems (broadly defined) available on the Academy of American Poets Web site.
Here’s a new resource: the Jewish Book Council’s blog. Check it out!