Look There

The first publication in the United States of celebrated contemporary Israeli poet Agi Mishol, winner of the Yehuda Amichai Poetry Prize

You are only twenty and your first pregnancy is an exploding bomb.

Under your broad skirt you are pregnant with dynamite and metal shavings. This is how you walk in the market . . .

—from “Woman Martyr” 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.

Skillfully rendered from the Hebrew into English by Lisa Katz, Look There introduces American readers to a vital new poet, whose depth and verve have earned her an international reputation. A Lannan Translation Selection

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.

Skillfully rendered from the Hebrew into English by Lisa Katz, Look There introduces American readers to a vital new poet, whose depth and verve have earned her an international reputation.

The New York Times - Joel Brouwer

To address what's called the matsav (the "situation") is to risk propagandism; to ignore it is to appear a Pangloss or coward. Mishol, born in 1947 in Hungary to Holocaust survivors and raised in Israel, finds a surprising amount of room to maneuver within these constraints, taking up political subjects with a sly delicacy reminiscent of the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska's best work.

Agi Mishol was born in 1947 in Hungary to Holocaust survivors and grew up in Israel. She is the author of more than twelve books of poetry, and the winner of the first Yehuda Amichai Poetry Prize, the Prime Minister’s Prize for Literature, and many other awards.