Let me read a few poems that I've been
doing by way of translation.
I think it's a good thing for poets to do translation
or to try translation to bring other kinds of voices
into our own language.
These are some poems by Nathan Zach.
Nathan Zach is an Israeli poet.
Roughly about my age, contemporary.
Born in Germany now lives in Israel.
I don't think there's much readily available in English
of his poetry.
And I'd like you to hear some of it.
I'm not competent in Hebrew, but I've
been working through glosses provided by Shula.
And I think there's a way in which the poems catch something
of his accuracy and something of his voice.
He's in a position of using a language which
is at once a living, colloquial language to a degree
and yet, also, has behind it that whole range
of biblical allusion and the resources of that tradition.
And like many contemporary poets,
Zach is somewhat of an ironist.
And therefore uses that space between biblical language
and how it's shifted into new context
for something of that effect of irony.
Here, for example, is a poem which
is his version of Genesis.
It's called "When God First Said."
"When God first said let there be light,
he meant it would not be dark for him.
In that moment he didn't think about the sky.
But the trees were already filling with water.
The birds receiving air and body.
Then the first wind touch the Lord's eyes and he saw it
in a cloud of glory and thought, 'it is good.'
He didn't think, then, about people,
people in their multitude.
But they were already standing apart from the trees,
unraveling in their hearts a scheme about pain.
When God first thought of night, he didn't think about sleep.
'So be it,' God said.
'I will be happy,' but they were multitudes."