Erez Biton has got a lot to answer for – and all of it good and thoroughly enriching. Octogenarian Biton is a lauded Algerian-born Israeli poet, of Moroccan heritage, who is verily festooned with a truckload of awards. That includes the biggest official pat on the back of all: the Israel Prize, which he received in 2015.
That alone would make him a pertinent subject for a spot in this year’s Israeli Poets’ Festival at Metulla – which, for obvious security reasons, is not taking place at its perennial berth in the far North. This time round, the country’s leading poetry event, which has been overseen by Confederation House in Jerusalem since its inception in 1998, will be held at three locations around the capital – Mishkenot Sha’ananim, the Khan Theater and the host cultural venue – from August 28-30. Entry to all shows and readings, other than the ones at the Khan Theater, is free.
Biton’s work, both written and in sociopolitical spheres, will be heralded at the festival by Ronny Someck, who has accumulated a hatful of prizes himself for his poetic oeuvre. Fittingly, Someck’s bio includes the Yehuda Amichai Prize, named for the feted late poet whose centenary is being marked at the festival and, possibly even more pointedly, he is this year’s recipient of the Erez Biton Prize.
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SOMECK WILL be on call several times across the three-day program, including at a session when he will recite from Biton’s evocative, poignant and incisive body of work and talk about his 82-year-old mentor. He believes that, had it not been for Biton, he may not have ever set pen to paper.
“He was the first who said I am going to write poetry that is not about the white-collar sector,” Someck states. “I am going to write poetry about things with which you are not familiar.” This was at a time when the folks who ran most of the national show were Ashkenazim. “He said I am going to write poems that have words in Moroccan. That was not accepted practice back then.”
The 73-year-old poet, who was born in Iraq and made aliyah with his family as a tiny tot, naturally identifies with that side of Israeli society. “He was on his own to begin with. But gradually, he gave other poets, myself included, the courage to incorporate both the East and the West in their writing.”
Other poets, such as Amichai, Yona Wallach and David Avidan, left their imprint on Someck’s burgeoning art. But Biton was the one who convinced him that it was okay for him to write about the world as he sees it, and bring his cultural baggage and own life experiences into his work. “Erez was the one who said the ‘black side’ can be part of the world of poetry.”
That suggests a heavy political emphasis but, in fact, Someck believes Biton’s forte has always stemmed from his bravery and unstinting desire to talk about the highly personal, and address social taboos. “Erez’s better poems are the ones he writes about his blindness,” he notes. Biton lost his sight, and one hand, when he stepped on a landmine in his then town of residence, Lod, when he was 10 years old. “Here is someone who says I made my way into Hebrew poetry through becoming a Black Panther [a Sephardic political protest movement]. But, if you really want to know me, read the poems I write about this territory of the blind person.”
Suitably inspired by Biton et al, Someck has become one of the country’s poetic leading lights. He appears at numerous festivals and other gatherings here and around the world, and has had several poems he wrote in the aftermath of October 7 published in the country’s major dailies and in the foreign press.
His other Israeli Poets’ Festival duties include reading from his own work, as will fellow writers Yoram Wearth, Noa Shakargy, Inbar Shafruni and Amos Noy, as well as Biton himself. Part of Someck’s slot will be devoted to works from his latest publication, a tome called Fire released in April. “Some of the poems were written before October 7 and some afterwards,” he says.
I wondered whether he felt poetry makes a difference where it matters: out there in real life. Whether people take note of his and other poets’ work, and whether the poems actually have the power to influence the way we think and, hopefully, act. Someck feels the jury is still out on that one, but in any case, the forthcoming Confederation House event helps.
“Festivals and poets are, in fact, opposites. The poet sits at home and writes his poems. In my case, that’s the secure room in my apartment,” he chuckles. “The festival is something that happens in the bright lights, the spotlights. Why relocate from the dimly lit home room to the spotlight? For me, the poet has to leave his safe room from time to time and shout his poems out loud. There is something in poems which I want to impart, to give to others.”
That makes perfect sense – and a few months ago, Someck got some unfortunate street level collateral for that viewpoint. “A woman called me and told me her house had been burned in the Hamas attack. She said all her library was destroyed, including several of my books. She said the first book she was going to buy was my latest book, Fire. She said the content of the book was important to her.” Sadly, that is crystal clear.
Understandably, like so much of our life here these sad days, and umpteen artistic and cultural ventures over the past ten months, the barbaric attack of October 7 – and the various wars we have endured in this part of the world – inform much of the poetry festival repertoire crafted by artistic directors and writers Benny Ziffer and Shiri Lev-Ari. Shachar-Mario Mordechai will talk about a book he wrote inspired by the severe injuries sustained by his father in the Yom Kippur War, Gilad Meiri will focus on his writings that relate to his own father’s battlefield injuries, and Aya Elia will expound on the poetry book she wrote about her brother who was killed in Lebanon in 1997.
POEMS WRITTEN by IDF soldiers also get an airing at the festival, under the moderation of poet Eliaz Cohen and Chief Education Officer Brig.-Gen. Ofir Livius, who manages to moonlight as a poet. The festival finale features poets from kibbutzim down South, including Yisrael Neta from Be’eri and Ruthy Sabath from Magen. Eshkar Eldan Cohen will read poems by her 100-year-old poet father Anadad Eldan, also from Be’eri, who survived the Hamas attack, and there will be a discussion about the future of the kibbutz.
While the festival will offer some welcome respite from the ongoing political-military morass and its depressing damaging detritus, I wondered whether Someck believes poetry can really help to heal some of our emotional wounds. True to his craft, he draws on metaphorical climes. “I think art or, in fact, poetry is a marathon race. I believe that, ultimately, a poem or a line from a poem or a story can do wonders. But, for now, we are in the middle of a 400-meter hurdle race.”
Meanwhile, regardless of the road ahead – and despite the locational switch to Jerusalem – at least some evacuees from Metulla should make it to the events courtesy of transport laid on by the organizers to enable them to attend the festival.
For tickets and more information: (02) 539-9360 and https://www.confederationhouse.org/
