Symbol and Struggle: Poetry from Eli Eliahu

Eli Eliahu is a poet who lives in Ramat-Gan. Recently, his work has begun to be translated and published into English. Eliahu’s work can be playful and fanciful, but it is also socially engaged. He has described his poetry as “a documentation of the struggle of the individual against [the] background” of “a very stressed, crowded, violent and noisy country.” Eliahu has published two highly praised books in Hebrew, “I, and Not an Angel” (2008) and “City and Fears” (2011). He is the recipient of the 2014 Levi Eshkol Prime Minister’s Poetry Prize and writes for Haaretz on poetry and culture. Host Marcela Sulak reads six of his poems on today’s episode.

Music:
The Joy Of Lina (Farha) by Ihsan Al Munzer
Cacha Merakdim Beisrael by Hanna Ahroni

Text:
All works by Eli Eliahu
“Crossroads” and “Simple Thing,” translated by Kenneth Haworth
“Alibi,” translated by Adriana X. Jacobs
“Recommendation,” “On How I am Like a Pencil,” and “Under the Ground”