translated by Milton Teichman (with corrections by Yisrael Medad)
The American Poetry Review, July 1995
Published in Rechovot HaNahar (*), page 279-280
Again the snows have melted there--and the murderers now are farmers.(1)
They have gone out there to plow their fields--fields that are my graveyards.
If the tooth of the plow digs up a skeleton which breaks over the furrow,
The plowman will neither grieve nor tremble
But he will smile--he will recognize the mark his implement left.
Once more a spring landscape--flowering bulbs, lilac, twittering birds.
Herds lie down by the shallow waters of the sparkling stream.
Only there are no more Jews walking by -- with their beards and sidecurls.
They are gone from the inns with their prayershawls and fringes;
Gone from the shops that sold trinkets, or cloths, or food.
Gone from their workshops, gone from the trains, the markets, the synagogues-
All, all under the tooth of the Christian plow.
With abounding grace God has visited his Gentiles.
Yes, springtime is springtime--and the summer will be bountiful.
Roadside trees swell as those in the gardens.
Never has fruit been so red now that there are no more Jews.
Jews had no bells that rang for God.
Blessed is Christianity for they have bells ringing from on high.
Even now, the voice of bells rings over the plain, flowing over a
bright and fragrant landscape.
The bells are a mighty voice, master of everything.
Once they passed over the roofs of Jews--but no more.
Blessed is Christianity for it has bells on the heights to honor
a God who is good to Christians and to all....
And all the Jews lie under the tooth of their plow,
Or under the pasture grass,
Or in forest graves,
Or on the banks of rivers, or within them,
Or on the roadsides.
Praise be to Yezunyu (2) with solemn bells: Bim-bam!
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Notes
1. The reference is to Poles who collaborated with the Nazis in the murder of Jews.
2. Diminutive for Jesus.
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(*)
Wolf-Monzon, Tamar.
Livnat, Zohar.
The Poetic Codes of Rechovot ha-nahar ("Streets of the River"), pp. 19-33
Rechovot ha-nahar, Uri Zvi Greenberg's great book of lamentation over the destruction and loss of European Jewry, follows an ancient tradition of lamentation over the destruction and persecution of the Jewish people which has developed in Hebrew poetry since the era of the piyyut and medieval poetry. In this book Greenberg uses a new poetic language, including concepts and expressions such as kosef ('yearning'), nigun ('melody') and nofim ('landscapes'), which appear for the first time in this book but will reappear in other contexts in later texts. In this sense, Rehovot ha-nahar is a constitutive text, which introduces a new poetic and linguistic code.
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6 comments:
Hi, I came across this post after reading Tom Segev's "The 7th Million." The author mentions Greenberg as a great poet. That may be, but this poem is bad:
The opening line barely misses a cliche, and the promising 2nd half becomes idiotic and predictable rather soon. Fields as graveyards, digging up skeletons, etc., as well as the requisite contrast of a "dead field" vs. what is seen - flowers, birds, and summertime. The Jews that are "gone" are not presented in any compelling way, merely part of a list of places they used to frequent - this somewhat monotonous description COULD work, if trimmed a bit, and set aside a much more evocative, poetic scenery, w/ good imagery and creative connections. But, it's not.
Then, you have the "tooth" of the "Christian plow" - another too-obvious, empty idea, empty of poetry and philosophical substance. The image is trees "swelling" is good, but under-done, and, again, a bad, banal contrast w/ "gone Jews" and "red fruit." Then, "blessed is Christianity," another unoriginal idea, using the dichotomy b/w a good God, vs. one that doesn't care, esp. not for anyone outside of his "chosen few." Its lack of depth may be passable, but there's really nothing poetic about the language. Of course, I suspect something has to be lost in translation, but either the translator intentionally made the poem a dull string of cliches, or they were Greenberg's.
The analysis below it is downright silly, since truly new poetic language is rare, and there's nothing at all new about "yearning," "melody," or "landscapes" - typical rehashed cliches, especially when applied to death. The bit about it being a "constitutive text" is even worse - merely English lit jargon that has no place in serious discussion.
Thanks for your mighty attempt to critique poetry. I am sure it took a lot of effort to come up with such a meager analysis. The poem was written between 1941-45 and the Hebrew cadence is of course difficult to replicate into English.
YMedad, you are impotent. If the analysis is "meager," state how. If not, keep your lack of understanding private so that you're not insulted.
In essence, there's little to critique here - sometimes, even a bad poem might have a kind of philosophical depth that can be commented upon, beyond the technical aspect of work. But, that's a subject for the philosophers and historians of ideas, not artists - although good artists are masters of both idea and technique. Here, at least in this poem, is master of neither.
Greenberg wallows not only in philosophical cliches, but cliches of image, idea, contrast, etc., and any other thing relevant to poetry. I pointed these out above, and, more importantly, I write "how." That it was written in 1941-45 is no defense, and that it has aged so poorly less than 70 yrs later is indicative of its poor quality.
But, people don't like to be wrong, so they engage in your kind of "dialectic" to avoid dealing w/ their own prejudices.
Despite getting older, I'm not quite impotent and my five children are proof.
And since I have little time for persons who are so out of their depth, let me just say that we disagree as to the character and style of Greenberg's poetry. And if this is the only poem of his you have read, I suggest you expand your knowledge of his writing to get a broader picture and one more balanced rather than letting your rage get the better of you.
Geez...It always comes down to testicular fortitude.
I don't know.
I use my brain.
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