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5.0 AVERAGE
5.0 AVERAGE
Wow.
I can't believe I am the first to read (perhaps not to read for I bought the book secondhand!) and review this beautiful book.
Ms. Thayne allows narrative prose to share space with lyric verse in a show and tell manner of her experiences traveling through the Holy Land. Her description alone would be enough to delight, but then she counter-balances it with a poignant piece of poetry to emphasize what she just introduced. One of her qualities in writing (which I prefer!) is that she doesn't explain everything. Some of her allusions are mysteries except, I'm sure, to a few intimates and I like being let in (almost)on the joke.
I loved the entirety of What Is It to Be a Woman Here?, A Bedouin Lullaby, and On the Mount of Beatitudes. In addition, there were several little gems hidden within the poems.
Here are my favorite excerpts:
from For David
[David] "sent Goliath a stone farewell."
from Having Shopped
"You take your loaf of unwrapped anything,
pay your pound and compare the price
with what you couldn't get at home."
From Massada
"Charged with triumphant carnage,
perverse, the particles of a private
holocaust wound the stones to keep
the gusts of life unsullied over
the Dead Sea."
From The Question of Old Trees
"The olive trees alone would make this holy ground.
In their shadowy reaches and rootings
they were awake to the intimate sojourner,
his peace fugitive even
before the incalculable fraud."
From Elsa Epstein, Kibbutz Ayelet Hashahar
"You detail this post card world
where the sweat of the brow provides
the garden that Eve ate her way out of."
Even the whimsy of Ossuary is instilled with depth:
Ossuary
(Where the bones come shiny!)
Sticks and stones
can cover bones
When stacked by ageless art.
And shovels bring
up everything
But flesh and breath and heart.
Emma Lou Thayne writes as if she does not intend to share and, therefore, we are able to receive her thoughts unmuddled by public opinion, fresh and clear as if we were seeing through her eyes. Her honesty is that of a child, her instinct of a mother, but her voice is of a righteous woman seeking communication with her God.
"If that land is holy, it is not because of the antiquity in its rubble, the blood in its crevices, the voices in its icons or shrines - nor even the stark beauty of its redemption. It must be holy for furnishing a private encounter with the whirlwind..."
*I also learned an interesting little fact: "The long strips of goat hair that make the tent are woven, one new strip a year, by the wife whose tent it will always be. When dry, the goat's hair is porous, admits the wind to cool and clear; when wet, it closes like knit fingers to keep out the storm."
I can't believe I am the first to read (perhaps not to read for I bought the book secondhand!) and review this beautiful book.
Ms. Thayne allows narrative prose to share space with lyric verse in a show and tell manner of her experiences traveling through the Holy Land. Her description alone would be enough to delight, but then she counter-balances it with a poignant piece of poetry to emphasize what she just introduced. One of her qualities in writing (which I prefer!) is that she doesn't explain everything. Some of her allusions are mysteries except, I'm sure, to a few intimates and I like being let in (almost)on the joke.
I loved the entirety of What Is It to Be a Woman Here?, A Bedouin Lullaby, and On the Mount of Beatitudes. In addition, there were several little gems hidden within the poems.
Here are my favorite excerpts:
from For David
[David] "sent Goliath a stone farewell."
from Having Shopped
"You take your loaf of unwrapped anything,
pay your pound and compare the price
with what you couldn't get at home."
From Massada
"Charged with triumphant carnage,
perverse, the particles of a private
holocaust wound the stones to keep
the gusts of life unsullied over
the Dead Sea."
From The Question of Old Trees
"The olive trees alone would make this holy ground.
In their shadowy reaches and rootings
they were awake to the intimate sojourner,
his peace fugitive even
before the incalculable fraud."
From Elsa Epstein, Kibbutz Ayelet Hashahar
"You detail this post card world
where the sweat of the brow provides
the garden that Eve ate her way out of."
Even the whimsy of Ossuary is instilled with depth:
Ossuary
(Where the bones come shiny!)
Sticks and stones
can cover bones
When stacked by ageless art.
And shovels bring
up everything
But flesh and breath and heart.
Emma Lou Thayne writes as if she does not intend to share and, therefore, we are able to receive her thoughts unmuddled by public opinion, fresh and clear as if we were seeing through her eyes. Her honesty is that of a child, her instinct of a mother, but her voice is of a righteous woman seeking communication with her God.
"If that land is holy, it is not because of the antiquity in its rubble, the blood in its crevices, the voices in its icons or shrines - nor even the stark beauty of its redemption. It must be holy for furnishing a private encounter with the whirlwind..."
*I also learned an interesting little fact: "The long strips of goat hair that make the tent are woven, one new strip a year, by the wife whose tent it will always be. When dry, the goat's hair is porous, admits the wind to cool and clear; when wet, it closes like knit fingers to keep out the storm."