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Mishol, Agi. Look There.


MISHOL, Agi. Look there. Graywolf Press. 78p. c2006.1-55597-436-8. $14.00. SA

Although Agi Mishol Agi Mishol, Israeli female poet, was born in 1946. Her most famous poem is Kol Kakh heika ("So much did it press..."). See The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself, 2003, ISBN 0-8143-2485-1  was born in Hungary, at a very young age she moved with her parents to Israel; she eventually grew into one of the leading figures in Israeli poetry. Look There is Mishol's first full-length work to appear in English, thanks to the meticulous translation work of Lisa Katz, a professor at Hebrew University Hebrew University of Jerusalem, at Mt. Scopus, Givat Ram, Ein Karem, and Rehovot, Israel; coeducational. First proposed in 1882, formally opened 1925. It is the world's largest Jewish university and is noted for its work on the Dead Sea Scrolls.  in Jerusalem. These new and selected poems Among the numerous literary works titled Selected Poems are the following:
  • Selected Poems by Robert Frost
  • Selected Poems by Galway Kinnell
  • Selected Poems by Hugh MacDiarmid
  • Selected Poems by Howard Moss
, written from the heart by a weathered observer, are rich with detail yet eminently readable. Whether about the lives of her parents--both Holocaust survivors--or the small, everyday pleasures of life such as "the soft, much-kissed down / on the bottom of the cat's ear," Mishol's poems are soundly plotted and rooted in deep reflection.

In the poem "Woman Martyr," Mishol recounts the fateful fate·ful  
adj.
1. Vitally affecting subsequent events; being of great consequence; momentous: a fateful decision to counterattack.

2. Controlled by or as if by fate; predetermined.

3.
 day a 20-year-old woman from Bethlehem walked into a bakery and blew herself up. While Mishol could easily take this opportunity to make any number of judgments on this all-too-common tragedy, she assumes a refreshingly rational and humane stance on the young woman's plight. Just look at the closing stanza stan·za  
n.
One of the divisions of a poem, composed of two or more lines usually characterized by a common pattern of meter, rhyme, and number of lines.



[Italian; see stance.
 of the poem: "Since then, other matters / have obscured your story, / about which I speak all the time / without having anything to say."

Perhaps Katz best summarizes Mishol's magic in her introduction to the book when she comments on how the poet's work "responds to a particular natural environment and political situation, and which becomes universal without being general." A highly educational and enjoyable read. Beth Lizardo, Bard College Bard College, at Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.; founded 1860 as St. Stephen's College for men; rechartered 1935 as Bard College; became coeducational in 1944; affiliated with Columbia Univ. 1928–44. A small, progressive college, Bard stresses independent study.  Student, NY

J--Recommended for junior high school students. The contents are of particular interest to young adolescents and their teachers.

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*--The asterisk (1) See Asterisk PBX.

(2) In programming, the asterisk or "star" symbol (*) means multiplication. For example, 10 * 7 means 10 multiplied by 7. The * is also a key on computer keypads for entering expressions using multiplication.
 highlights exceptional books.
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Author:Lizardo, Beth
Publication:Kliatt
Article Type:Book review
Date:Mar 1, 2006
Words:322
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