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Look There
New & Selected Poems
By Agi Mishol and Lisa Katz
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Poetry 1-55597-436-8, 112 pages, Paper
A Lannan Translation Series Selection
“Agi Mishol’s poems feel perfectly weighted. Her mix of honest empathy and care (‘I who am not exempt from anything—’) and elegant wit (‘I read into the darkness quickly / the words I thought of so slowly’) is deeply touching and enlivening. This is a voice and a spirit to welcome and to live with, gratefully.” —Naomi Shihab Nye
Agi Mishol’s poetry, written in the instability of contemporary Israel, is an astounding balancing act between brave utterance and comic revelation, stark reality and pure pleasure. The poet dreams of being married to Stephen Hawking; men, with all their brazen flaws, are loved, even admired; parents are mourned and remembered; the poet herself freezes in the spotlight of her own poetry reading; a suicide bomber disguised as a pregnant woman walks into a Jerusalem bakery.
“Agi Mishol’s poems know how to tell a tale, to sing a song and also dance—all at one and the same time. I love the splendid surprises in them, the subtle and exact sadness, and the mysterious manner by which she makes this sadness overflow with a hidden joy. Agi Mishol is a wonderful poet.” —Amos Oz
“These engaging poems by Agi Mishol are sparked by sensuous appetites, a nimble wit and a firmly grounded moral intelligence. Whether she writes about love or politics, her survivor parents or her own strategies for survival, Mishol confronts painful realities with spirit and imagination. Beautifully translated by Lisa Katz, Look There introduces the reader of English to a significant contemporary poet.”
—Chana Bloch, Translator of Open Closed Open by Yehuda Amichai.
* Things Happen, Hakibbutz Hameuhad & Mossad Bialik [Korim Dvarim]
* Nanny and Both of Us, Ekked, 1972 [Nanny Ve-Shneinu]
* A Cat’s Scratch, Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1978 [Srita Shel Hatul]
* Gallop, Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1980 [Gallop]
* Plantation Notes, Keter, 1986 [Yoman Mata]
* Fax Pigeon, Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1991 [Yonat Faximilia]
* The Interior Plain, Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1995 [Ha-Shfela Ha-Pnimit]
* See (edited by Nathan Zach), Helikon-Tag, 1997 [Hineh]
* Look There, Helikon-Tag, 1999 [Re`eh Sham]
* Dream Notebook, Even Hoshen, 2000 [Machberet Ha-Chalomot]
* Wax Flower, Even Hoshen, 2002 [Nerot Netz Ha-Chalav]
* Selected and New Poems, Mossad Bialik & Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2003 [Mivchar Ve-Chadashim]
* Moment, Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2005
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Foto by Giabrand
Agi (Agnes) Mishol (1947 – ) is a Hungarian-born Israeli poet, the only daughter of Holocaust survivors.
Biography
Mishol’s family immigrated to Israel when she was four. Her parents ran a grocery store in Gedera and spoke mainly Hungarian at home. Mishol holds a BA in literature from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and an MA in Hebrew literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Mishol is married to Giora Fried and lives on a farm in Kfar Mordechai. They have two children, Maya and Uri. [1]
Literary career
Mishol runs poetry workshops at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Alma College in Tel Aviv. She has won the Tel Aviv Foundation Award (1991), the Yehuda Amichai Poetry Prize (2002), the Prime Minister’s Prize, and the Dolitzky Prize for Poetry (2007).
