Raquel Chalfi 
Reality Crumbs 
Selected Poems

Reality Crumbs is the first book-length collection in English of the work of the celebrated Israeli poet, playwright, and filmmaker Raquel Chalfi. Versatile and unpredictable, Chalfi’s often visionary and dramatic poetry has been acclaimed for its independence and daring by leading Israeli critics. In the words of poet and critic Eli Hirsch, her work is a ‚thrilling combination of simplicity and chaos, clarity and mystery.‘



Ever present in Chalfi’s poetry is the need to touch, to feel the tangible and sensuous, as well as a desire to break all boundaries and smash so-called conventional wisdoms, be they social, cultural, or linguistic. Her poems are often anxious, restless, inquisitive, nearly physical in their constant search for, and chasing after, that one element that will help them get a step closer to grasping the mystery at their center. And if she takes on the persona of a wild biker or a witch, it is not merely to travel freely in the land of fancy and so taste another’s life, but, more importantly, to measure the extent of her empathy.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface


Tsipi Keller



From
Underwater Poems and Other Poems (1975)



On the Shore, Tel Aviv, Winter 1974

From the Songs of Crazy Dolores

A Brief Love



From
Freefall (1979)



Traveling to Jerusalem on a Moon Night

Hair of Night

Freefall

The Water Queen of Jerusalem

Reckless Love

I Drew My End Near

For

Handling Pain

Daily Record

Chameleon

Niche

A Sex-Mechanic in Berkley

Sitting in the Wall

Going Up and Down the Stairs

The Magical Cat

And the Whiteness Grew Stark

Optimism in an English Meadow



From
Chameleon or the Principle of Uncertainty (1986)



Tutti’s Seven Energy Balls

Voices Near the Sea

Poem about Sky, Stone, Sea

Suddenly

An Open Letter to Poetry Readers

Dissolves

Relationship,  2

I Went to Work as an Ostrich

Signs



From
Matter (1990)



Once I Knew

Such Tenderness

A Hat’s Architecture

Elegy for a Friend Who Lost Her Mind

Tale about an Inside-Out Dress

Bear Song

Parrot in My Brain

A Hidden Passenger

Blues in a Jar

Reality Crumbs in Café Marsand

Sometimes   At Noon

Busy

Eurydice

*(First line: And now what?)



From
Love of the Dragon (1995)



The Soul or Possibly

A Moment in the Inner Glass

Birthmark

Cubism

Scanner (tr. by the poet)

The Love of Trees

Wings

German Boot

Internal Gymnastics

Sub-Matter

Three Women, Strangers, Watch Me by the Sea



From
A Hidden Passenger (1999)



Organism,    Chaos

Let Me Have a Bowl

Greenhouse Effect

The Glow of the Child

Pictures from a Diary

Space Pockets

Laundry

The Objects

Nearly

Suckling



From
Portrait of Father and Daughter (2004)



To Watch Life

I Put Over My Head

I’m Sitting

And How You’re Trying To Make Me Laugh

This Man

*(First line: When I came in here today)

Father Who Comes and Appears



From
Secret Details from the Transparent Binder (2007)



The Cute Word-Strollers

More and More They Wrap

When Pain Becomes a Flower

Metaphors

Here   in the Hidden House

Ants

In Such a Furnace of Noon

So Why Don’t I

Don’t Tell Me

Double Exposure in the Black Forest

A Half-Day Off

Love at Mc Donald’s

The Cat Frasier as a Philosophy Major

A Moment Tries to Catch Itself by Its Tail

Cinema

If Only I Were a Fearless Biker

Sixty-Five Million Years Ago

Short Ones

From the Diary of a Penguinette (tr. by the poet)

Mrs. Darwin (tr. by the poet)



From
Witches (2009)



A Witch Bent on Healing

The Witch Who Did Not Cushion Her Life

Mutant Witch

Witch Breaks

Witch in Fact

Hopeful Witch

The Witches‘ Chorus

Monologue of the Witch Impregnated by the Devil

The Fat Witch’s Blues

Witch Discusses the Color Scale



From
Portrait of Mother and Daughter (2010)



Weaving

A Small Prayer

Scar Tissue

Ejection Seat

Life as an Enormous Beast

She

Back Yard

In the Tiny Speck

From the Notebook

Mother

My First Dream about You

The Neighborhood Cats, And Also the Birds

Someone Went Past

And Now



Afterword


Dan Miron



Acknowledgments

About Raquel Chalfi

About Tsipi Keller

About Dan Mion

Index of Titles and First Lines

Über den Autor

Raquel Chalfi is the author of many volumes of poetry, and her work has been translated into English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and other languages. She has received numerous literary awards, including the Prime Minister’s Prize, the Ashman Prize, the Bialik Prize for Poetry, and the Brenner Prize for Poetry. She is also a playwright and filmmaker, and has taught film at Tel Aviv University. She lives and works in Tel Aviv. The author of nine books,
Tsipi Keller is a novelist and translator. Her previous translations include
Poets on the Edge: An Anthology of Contemporary Hebrew Poetry (also published by SUNY Press) and Maya Bejerano’s
The Hymns of Job and Other Poems. She lives and works in West Palm Beach, Florida.