Nurit Zarchi's baby blues

07/15/15 • 7 min

"And so, quietly, eyes shut,babies drop into the world,like rain falling in the darkfrom a gigantic hand into shafts,into a spider’s tent, a cold apple."

That's the opening stanza of Nurit Zarchi's poem "Baby Blues," read by host Marcela Sulak in today's podcast about the Jerusalem-born poet. Zarchi, who now lives in Tel Aviv, is one of Israel’s best-known children’s authors and has published eight collections of poetry, two collections of short stories, and a collection of essays.

Text:Poets on the Edge. An Anthology of Contemporary Hebrew Poetry. Selected and translated by Tsipi Keller. State University of New York Press, 2008.

Music:Li-Ron Choir - Yalda Mazleg Ve Yalda KafShlomo Gronich - Barehov ShelanuLi-Ron Choir - Shalosh Yeladot Mayim

"And so, quietly, eyes shut,babies drop into the world,like rain falling in the darkfrom a gigantic hand into shafts,into a spider’s tent, a cold apple."

Text:Poets on the Edge. An Anthology of Contemporary Hebrew Poetry. Selected and translated by Tsipi Keller. State University of New York Press, 2008.

Music:Li-Ron Choir - Yalda Mazleg Ve Yalda KafShlomo Gronich - Barehov ShelanuLi-Ron Choir - Shalosh Yeladot Mayim

Previous Episode

"The Seven Good Years" Part II: Bombs away

In our second installment, host Marcela Sulak reads an essay from Etgar Keret's memoir, The Seven Good Years, called "Bombs Away." We hear how Keret and his wife Shira Gefen cope after receiving "inside" reports about an imminent Iranian nuclear attack on Israel.

"Gradually my wife also began to realize the advantages of our shabby existence. After she found a not-exactly-reliable news site warning that Iran might already have nuclear weapons, she decided it was time to stop washing dishes. “There’s nothing more frustrating than getting nuked while you’re putting the soap in the dishwasher,” she explained. “From now on, we only wash the dishes on an immediate-need basis.”"

Hear how this attitude escalates in much the same way as the panic surrounding the Iranian nukes.

Listen to Part I of our dip into Keret's memoir, in which Marcela reads the opening essay - Keret's son is born on the day of a terror attack.

Text:The Seven Good Years. Translated by Sondra Silverston, Miriam Shlesinger, Jessica Cohen, and Anthony Berris. New York: Riverhead Books, 2015.

Further reading:Suddenly, a Knock on the Door The Girl on the Fridge Missing Kissinger The Nimrod Flipout The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God & Other Stories

Music:Eran Tzur - Bachutz (lyrics by Etgar Keret)Shlomi Shaban and Etgar Keret perform at Tel Aviv's Pecha Kucha festival

Next Episode

A. B. Yehoshua's green seas and yellow continents

Host Marcela Sulak today reads from A. B. Yehoshua's novel A Journey to the End of the Millennium. Set in the year 999. It follows a Jewish merchant from Tangiers on his annual voyage to Europe to secure and expand his trade:

"And so in these twilight days, as faiths were sharpened in the join between one millennium and the next, it was preferable to restrict encounters with adherents of another faith and to be content, at least for the greater part of the way, to travel by sea, for the sea, which can reveal itself at times to be capricious and cruel, owes no obligation to what is beyond its reach."

Avraham Yehoshua was born in 1936 into a fifth generation Jerusalem family of Sephardic origin. The New York Times calls him “The Israeli Faulkner.”

Text:A Journey to the End of the Millennium - A Novel of the Middle Ages. By A. B. Yehoshua. Translated by Nicholas de Lange. A Harvest Book. Harcourt, Inc., 1998.

Further reading by A. B. Yehoshua:The Lover. Garden City N.Y., Doubleday, 1978 (translated by Philip Simpson). Dutton, 1985. Harvest/HBJ, 1993.A Late Divorce. London, Harvill Press, 1984. San Diego, Harcourt Brace, 1993.Five Seasons. New York, Doubleday, 1989.Mr. Mani. New York, Doubleday, 1992.Open Heart. Garden City N.Y., Doubleday, 1995.The Liberated Bride. London, Peter Halban, 2003.A Woman in Jerusalem. London, Halban Publishers, 2006, 2011.Friendly Fire: A Duet. London, Halban Publishers, 2008.The Retrospective. New York, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.

Music:Los Tiempos Pasados - Una Matica De RudaLa Roza Enflorese - La Roza Enflorese