Jewish Poets-Jewish Voices Wraps Up Season with 3 Scheduled Readings

By Eileen Wingard

LA JOLLA, California — The Astor Judaica Library had some 60 people attending the May 4 Jewish Poets—Jewish Voices program featuring three published poets, Stewart Florsheim, Simon Patlis and Adam Shames.

Florsheim was visiting from the Bay Area, where he writes and gives poetry workshops. He is the son of German-born parents. His father is a concentration camp survivor; his mother a refugee from Nazi Germany. Some of his poems were influenced by this legacy, several were ekphrastic poems, inspired by paintings, while others reflected his personal experiences such as making pesto with his daughter.

Simon Patlis, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, presented his English translations of poems written by contemporary Ukrainian and Russian poets. One was a poem about the devastation Russia brought upon the Ukranian poet’s native city, Mariupol. In the 17 years of Jewish Poets—Jewish Voices, Patlis is the second local poet presented more than once. The first time, he was featured reading his original Russian poems.

Adam Shames shared his poems and what he calls, pongs (poems set to music). He took up the guitar as an adult, but soon mastered it to become a song leader and founder of the Kreativity Network. He relocated to San Diego from Chicago. He was recently featured at the JCC’s Tapestry Day of Learning, leading a general song session for all the participants and also conducting one of the classes.

After the three featured poets presented their works, a dozen audience members offered poems, several of whom had been featured poets in past years.

Joy Heitzmann served as master of ceremonies. A reception with refreshments brought by Jewish Poets—Jewish Voices committee members Jane Zeer, Janice Alper and Michael Horvitz concluded the evening.

Samples of poems read by the featured poets:

NARRATING THE STONES by Stewart Florsheim

(Stolpersteine installation, Frankfurt, May 2022)

At the end of the ceremony
The young schoolchildren
Peel away from the crowd,
It looks like a movie
That begins in real time

But then I imagine
The time slows,
Almost to a standstill;
The children are in school.
They’re learning about Hitler
and the camps,

They see pictures
and ask questions.
Kinder auch?

The teacher tells them
About a Jewish family
Who lived a few blocks away,
At Zeil 51-
A father, mother, two children.

Kristallnacht.
Dachau.
New York.
Stolpersteine.

Back in real time,
The children rush
To the stones
To drop roses on the names
of my grandfather,
grandmother,
mother,
uncle.

One of them
struggles
to look up at me,
puzzled
by the weight
of remorse.

*

MARIUPOL by Alma Naivny, English translation by Simon Patlis

and at that moment when the ringing silence
could fill eternity within a millimeter
the howling flaming shapes of my sweet country
inhabiting my dreams will quiet down
and life will start again inside an instant
just long enough for me to fall in love
once more for this protracted story
to be deserving of the finest films
I’ll fix the past as if I were allowed
to alter it impossible just to
repent and pray to god and little by little
seek a path to light a beam a tunnel an oval
when you are rushed into the world the womb
will be remembered by you as home
that was destroyed in flames of Nero’s envy
but then restored although it wasn’t easy
this endless instant suddenly turns to ashes
when they escort you from the building to be shot
I write and do not know who else would dare
write of the publicans who are now at the top

*
LAST NIGHT YOU SPOKE OF THE SHOFAR by Adam Shames

It is the story of the history of the wind, you said,
the call of an animal you once rode
over the dirt and stones
while Moses dreamed beside you.

You feel its sound in your body
and you are once again a child
looking out your Sunday school window,
following that ancient, simultaneous breath
to other mouths and moments on this earth
where people like us have come together
to end and to begin again.

And today we sit in this Western holy city
with its secret ocean caves and succulents that blossom,
listening once again to the deep longing
of the shofar urging us toward a renewal of spirit
and the clarity of purpose
that grows like seasons
in our hearts.

*
Eileen Wingard is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts.