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I am water, I am fire
I am poem, I inspire
I am silence, sound, a pen stroke
I am blue, a twist of smoke.
About the Cover & Illustrations
When my father passed away, I went back home for the traditional Shiva-a, the seven days period of mourning. Perhaps the grief did something to change the way I viewed things, or else it was sitting in that space—my childhood home—in a spot I rarely sat before, discovering it from a new angle, observing how light penetrated the far reaches of this place, how the furniture signified relationships in the family. I drew what I saw on a napkin; wiped my tears with it, and later discarded it.
Coming back to the states, I recreated that sketch from memory. In my new drawing I used a fish-eye perspective. What does that mean? Like regular perspective, the horizontal lines converge into a vantage point in the distance. But here is the difference: the vertical lines are not straight, nor are they parallel. As you look up, vertical lines converge to a point up there, beyond the edge of the paper. You can call it Heaven. And as you look down, the vertical lines converge to a point below, call it Hell. Which makes the entire perspective embrace you, as if you are in the middle of a fish bowl, seeing the world curve around you.
And looking though such a perspective, what did I see? An earthquake, really, in the aftermath of my father's death. Books falling off the shelves; the lamp swinging like a pendulum; the little side table (in the front) overturned, so my father will never lay his pen upon it; and instead of the persian rugs that used to adorn this space once upon a time, I floated blank pages on the floor; pages he will never again use for writing.
In my next sketch I let the lamp swing even higher into the air. The place has completely tilted, and my father's armchair is ascending above the rest of the furniture. This is the sketch I used for an oil painting called My Father's Armchair, which later became the cover of this book.
Uvi Poznansky
About This Book
Home. A simple word; a loaded one. You can say it in a whisper; you can say it in a cry. Expressed in the voices of father and daughter, you can hear a visceral longing for an ideal place, a place never to be found again.
Imagine the shock, imagine the sadness when a daughter discovers her father’s work, the poetry he had never shared with anyone during the last two decades of his life. Six years after that moment of discovery, which happened in her childhood home while mourning for his passing, Uvi Poznansky presents a tender tribute: a collection of poems and prose, half of which is written by her, and half—by her father, the author, poet and artist Zeev Kachel. She has been translating his poems for nearly a year, with careful attention to rhyme and rhythm, in an effort to remain faithful to the spirit of his words.
Zeev’s writing is always autobiographical in nature; you can view it as an ongoing diary of his life. Uvi’s writing is rarely so, especially when it comes to her prose. She is a storyteller who delights in conjuring up various figments of her imagination, and fleshing them out on paper. She sees herself chasing her characters with a pen, in an attempt to see the world from their point of view, and to capture their voices. But in some of her poems, she offers you a rare glimpse into her most guarded, intensely private moments, yearning for Home.
About Zeev Kachel
Zeev Kachel, an author, poet and artist, published three books during his lifetime: a prose book Dams Erupting published in 1957, offering a personal account of events during his captivity in Jordan during Israel’s war of independence in 1948; a poetry book Can We Still Love published in 1961, questioning our capability to give and receive love, having witnessed the inhumanity of two world wars; and a poetry book Beyond The Window, What Day Is It Today, published in 1977, bringing to light an unusual creative collaboration with his daughter, Uvi Poznansky. Now after all these years, Home celebrates once again the spirit—and the action—of joining forces.
Until his passing in 2006 at the age of ninety four, Zeev created a prolific body of work. His attention alternated frequently between painting and writing. He left the fancy, ‘poetic’ words behind, his craft becoming increasingly direct, and deeply personal. He archived his latest poems; they were never published in his lifetime. During the mourning period for his passing, his daughter found a treasure in his apartment: stacks and stacks of notes, stories, plays and poems, never before shared with anyone. He had written them out of pain, in response to his separation from his wife at the age of seventy.
A selection of these poems was offered in the original language, in the book Ropes, Separation, Tear, edited and published by his daughter six years after his death. The opening poems in the book harken back to his childhood, describing the pain6 of growing up in eastern Europe, struggling to survive in the face of hate and antisemitism.
The following poems talk about separation, expressing a sense of betrayal, loneliness and despair.
The closing poems describe an emotional rip, a tear from life. For many years, he had been waiting for death, thinking about it all the while. Perhaps in the end he came close to meeting it with a degree of acceptance.
In the last few months, his daughter has been translating the poems from Hebrew. Offering them here, in Home, she kept them in the same order as in Ropes, Separation, Tear, inviting you to take the same emotional journey.
About Uvi Poznansky
Uvi Poznansky is a California-based author, poet and artist. Her writing and her art are tightly coupled. “I paint with my pen,” she says, “and write with my paintbrush.”
She earned her B. A. in Architecture and Town Planning from the Technion in Haifa, Israel. During her studies and in the years immediately following her graduation, she practiced with an innovative Architectural firm, taking part in the design of a large-scale project, Home for the Soldier.
At the age of 25 Uvi moved to Troy, N.Y. with her husband and two children. Before long, she received a Fellowship grant and a Teaching Assistantship from the Architecture department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she guided teams in a variety of design projects; and where she earned her M.A. in Architecture. Then, taking a sharp turn in her education, she earned her M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Michigan.
During the years she spent in advancing her career—first as an architect, and later as a software engineer, software team leader, software manager and a software consultant (with an emphasis on user interface for medical instruments devices)—she wrote and painted constantly. In addition, she taught art appreciation classes.
Her versatile body of work can be seen on her website, which includes poems, short stories, bronze and ceramic sculptures, paper engineering projects, oil and watercolor paintings, charcoal, pen and pencil drawings, and mixed media.
In addition, she posts her thoughts about the creative process on her blog, and engages readers and writers in conversation on her Goodreads Q&A group.
Uvi published a poetry book in collaboration with her father, Zeev Kachel. Later she published two children’s books, Jess and Wiggle and Now I Am Paper, which she illustrated, and for which she created animations. You can find these animations on her Amazon author page, and her Goodreads author page.
Apart From Love is an intimate peek into the life of a strange family: Natasha, the accomplished pianist, has been stricken with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Her ex-husband Lenny has never told their son Ben, who left home ten years ago, about her situation. At the same time he, Lenny, has been carrying on a love affair with a young redhead, who bears a striking physical resemblance to his wife—but unlike her, is uneducated, direct and unrefined. This is how things stand at this moment, the moment of Ben’s return to his childhood home.
Home, her deeply moving poetry book in tribute of her father, includes her poetry and prose, as well as translated poems from the pen of her father, the poet and author Zeev Kachel.
A Favorite S
on, her novella, is a new-age twist on an old yarn. It is inspired by the biblical story of Jacob and his mother Rebecca, plotting together against the elderly father Isaac, who is lying on his deathbed. This is no old fairy tale. Its power is here and now, in each one of us.
Twisted is a unique collection of tales. In it, the author brings together diverse tales, laden with shades of mystery. Here, you will come into a dark, strange world, a hyper-reality where nearly everything is firmly rooted in the familiar—except for some quirky detail that twists the yarn, and takes it for a spin in an unexpected direction.
Rise to Power, A Peek at Bathsheba, and The Edge of Revolt are volume I, II, and III of The David Chronicles, telling the story of David as you have never heard it before: from the king himself, telling the unofficial version, the one he never allowed his court scribes to recount. In his mind, history is written to praise the victorious—but at the last stretch of his illustrious life, he feels an irresistible urge to tell the truth.
With the exception of her newest release, these books are available in all three editions (audio, print and ebook.)
A Note to the Reader
I would love to learn what you thought of this book. You have the power of bringing it to the attention of more readers, by posting your own review.
Bonus Excerpt: A Peek at Bathsheba