Christal
Cooper
Excerpts
given copyright privilege by Ronny Someck, Robert Manaster, and White Pine
Press.
Ronny
Someck:
The Milk
Underground
On
September 15, 2015 White Pine Press published The Milk Underground by
Ronny Someck and translated by Hana Inbar and Robert Manaster.
The
Milk Underground
is the winner of the 2015 Cliff Becker Translation Prize.
Translators Robert Manastar and Hana Inbar write
in in their introduction of The Milk Underground, titled “The
Pajama-Iraqi Israeli Poet”:
“The poems throughout The Milk Underground give a cohesive
voice to Ronny Someck’s oeuvre in Israeli poetry. He is a bridge builder. He is of the East as well as West. In an interview he explains, “I’m not looking
for roots. I never lost them. Baghdad is the East and it is planted in the
garden of the mind next to the tree of the West. Two trees that are two languages, which is
the mixer of my mouth has turned into one language.”
A Patriotic Poem
I’m
a Pajama-Iraqi, my wife’s Romaman
And
our daughter the thief from Baghdad.
My
mother’s always boiling the Euphrates and Tigris,
My
sister learned to make Perushki from
her Russia
Mother-in-law
Our
friend, Morocco the Knife, stabs
Fish
from the shores of Norway
With
a fork of English steel.
We’re
all fired workers taken off the tower
We
were building in Babylon.
We’re
all rusty spears Don Quixote thrust
At
windmills.
We’re
all still shooting at gleaming stars
A
minute before they’re swallowed
By
the Milky Way.
Someck has published ten other volumes of
poetry, which have been translated in over 41 languages: Exile; Solo; Asphalt; Seven Lines on the Wonder of the Yarkon; Panther; Rice Paradise; Bloody Mary; The Revolution Drummer; Algeria; and Horse Power.
Exile
Solo
Asphalt
Seven Lines
Panther
Rice Paradise
Bloody Mary
The Revolution Drummer
Algir
Horse Power
Someck, 65, was born in Baghdad in 1951,
and his family emigrated from Iraq to Israel in the early 1950s as second
generation Mizrahim (Jews from Africa and Asian – the “East”). Someck managed to succeed in Israeli
society without sacrificing his Mizrahniess identity despite the domination of
the Ashkenazim (Jews of European descent – the “West”).
His first love was basketball, which he played
competitively, but then something happened when he turned 16.
“I wrote my first poem
by chance. It was a note I sent to a girl classmate. I was 16 at the time, and
a second before sending the note, I tore it to pieces. Being a basketball
player at one of the youth groups of Maccabi Tel-Aviv, it seemed to me strange
that I would suddenly write a poem. Back
home I told myself: You’re an adolescent, and the poem you’ve written is just
one of the symptoms. But on that very day I wrote another poem, and yet another
one on the day after. It scared me. I hid the poems in an old shoebox and hoped
this temporary “disease” would go away. One day, when the shoebox started
overflowing, I decided to send two poems to two people I knew of. I sent the
first envelope to a poet I already admired, David Avidan. He answered
immediately with a very beautiful and moving letter. I sent the second envelope
to the literary editor of a very popular newspaper in Israel. I wrote to him
that I’m wearing shirt number 7 in a basketball team and that I write poems in
secret. I asked him to read the poem and tell me whether or not it was good. I
specified that the poem was meant for his eyes only.
For two weeks I didn’t get any answer. I was sure my poem was
bad and unworthy of a reply. But on the third week, to my astonishment, the
poem was printed on the very top of the literary section. I was embarrassed
(for I specifically asked not to have it printed). Yet I felt happy for
receiving “confirmation” that the poem was good. I was very confused. Then I raised my eyes and saw that instead of
“Ronny Somech” which was my name at the time, they wrote “Ronny Someck”. Rather
than being annoyed I felt the happiest person on earth. This way, I told
myself, no one would know it was me.
Two days later, during
the first basketball training session that followed, the coach pressed his
shoulder against mine and said to me, “There’s someone with a similar name to
yours who writes poems.” He said it in a “warning” tone, implying it was a good
thing it was someone else. Evidently in his mind, as well as in mine, there was
no connection between basketball and writing poems.
I went back to the
shoebox, took out all the poems and sent them to all newspapers under my new
name, and like the Cinderella story – all the poems were eventually printed.
When my tenth poem was
printed, my coach said to me in the middle of the training, “You know, Ronny,
the guy with the similar name to yours printed another poem this week.” And
after a timeout he added, “A beautiful poem.” I then told everyone it was
actually me, and from that moment my life on the basketball team got
complicated. Every time I held the ball for more than a second my teammates
used to call out at me: Pass the ball! What are you thinking of, a new line?”
This changed Someck’s life – he became a poet
and an avid reader of poetry. His poetic
influences are Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Wisława Szymborska, Seamus Heaney,
Fernando Pessoa, John Berryman, Jacques Prevert, Charles Baudelaire, Charles
Simic, Adonis, T.S. Eliot, Hayim Nachman Bialik, Yehuda Amichai, Amir Gilboa,
David Avidan, Yona Volach, Lea Goldberg.
He is also influenced by fiction writers
Fiodor Dostoyevsky and Antonio Skarmeta.
Romeck worked as a social guide for
street gangs until 1976, when at the age of 23 his first book of poetry, Exile
was published.
He studied Hebrew literature and
philosophy at Tel Aviv University, and drawing at the Avni Academy of Art.
He used both of his artistic abilities in
poetry and drawing by collaborating with his daughter Shirly, 24, on two
children’s books: The Laughter Button and Monkey Tough, Monkey Bluff.
Someck,
who also writes music, does not write drafts of his poems, but rather lets the
ideas cook in his brain until the final poem is finished and ready to appear on
the page.
“I see my head as an
oven of ideas. At a certain moment, when I feel the dish is ready and might
burn if left for another extra minute, I transfer it from the metaphoric oven
onto the page. But always during the writing something new comes in a word, a
line, or a period. Something that takes even me by surprise.”
The Milk Underground is divided into
three parts: The Introduction: The Pajama-Iraqi Israeli Poet; a section
consisting of 25 poems; Field Sentences: Nature Poems; Street Sentences: City
Poems; and biographies on the translators and Ronny Someck.
The poem that was the most compelling for
Someck to write is “Baghdad”.
“I was born there. A German doctor helped bring me into this
world at a Jewish Hospital. My nanny was an Arab girl. My parents brought me to
Israel when I was a baby and the “Black Box” of my memory is empty.
But there were my
parent’s stories about the cafe by the Tigris, about the smell of the fruits at
the Shugra Market and about singers like Farid El Atrash and Abd El Wabb . My
parents spoke Hebrew, and only my Grandfather followed Baghdad’s lifestyle. He
spoke broken Hebrew and he used to take me to a cafe where they played the
music of the Egyptian singer UM KULTHUM and served black coffee just like in
the cafe by the Tigris.
As for me, Baghdad
turned into a metaphor, into a place that existed only in my Grandfather’s
heart.
I felt as if I threw
Baghdad out of my life’s window, but during the Gulf war it came back knocking
at my door. I was sitting with a gas
mask, watching TV footage from Baghdad. In every shot I tried to place my
stroller, or put lipstick on my young mother’s lips, or see my father brushing
his fingers through his hair. And a moment later I saw this place destroyed.
At that moment I felt I
missed the place I was born in, I missed the eastern side of my life, and I
very much wanted to mix it into my west side story.”
Baghdad
With
the same chalk a policeman outlines a body in a crime scene
I
outline the borders of the city my life was shot into.
I
interrogate witnesses, extort out of their lips
Drops
of attack and imitate with hesitation the dance moves
Of
pita over a bowl of hummus.
When
they capture me, they’ll take a third off for good behavior
And
lock me up in the corridor of Salima Murad’s throat.
In
the prison’s kitchen, my mother would fry the fish her mother
Pulled
out of the river, and she’d tell about the word “fish”
Displayed
on a huge sign over the new restaurant’s door.
Whoever
dined there got a sliver of fish until
One
of the customers asked the owner to reduce
The
sign or enlarge the fish.
The
fish will prick his bones, will drown
The
hand that scrapes its scales.
Even
boiling oil on the interrogation pan
Wouldn’t
get an incriminating word out of its mouth.
The
memory’s an empty plate, scarred with a knife’s scratches
On
its skin
Language is very important to Someck – in The
Milk Underground each poem is presented in Hebrew on the left page and
English on the right.
“I write in Hebrew,
which expresses itself on many levels: The Bible on the one, army slang on the
other. It also adopted words from the various cultures that immigrated to
Israel during the last century, as well as from the Arabic language of our
neighbors. Yet, if King David arrived this weekend to Jerusalem, he’d
understand the language. The poet's job
is, perhaps, to be King David's travel guide.”
Someck
takes his job as poet very seriously and describes his job as poet in Israel to
that of the American pianist we see in American western movies.
“He puts his piano at
the corner of the saloon, which smells of gun-powder. He knows this saloon is
not a concert hall but perhaps it's the real place. For his safety he says:
"Don't shoot me, I'm only the pianist".”
Someck lives in Israel with his wife Liora and
their daughter Shirley where he teaches creative writing and literature and
leads creative writing workshops. He can be reached at someck@netvision.net.il
Photo
1
Ronny
Someck
Photo
2
White
Pine Press web logo
Photo
3
The
Milk Underground
Photo
4
Cliff
Becker
Photo
5
Robert
Manaster
Photo
6
Hana
Inbar
Photo
7
"Patriotic"
Poem in Hebrew
Photo
8
Jacket
covers of poetry books
Photo
9
1950s
Family Photo
Copyright granted by Ronny Someck
Photo
10
Ronny
Someck at age 16
Copyright granted by Ronny Someck
Photo
11a
Allen
Ginsberg
Attributed to Duk, Hans vann/ Aefo
CCASA 3.0 Netherlands.
Photo 11b
Jack Kerouac
Navy Reserve Reenlistment Photo 1943
Public Domain
Photo 11c
Wisława Szymborska
GFDL 1.2
Photo 11d
Ronny Someck and Seamus Heaney
Copyright granted by Ronny Someck
Photo 11e
Fernando Pessoa in 1928
Public Domain
Photo 11f
John Berryman
Attributed to Jerry Bauer
Fair Use Under the United States Copyright Law
Photo 11g
Jacques Prevert
CCASA 1.0 Generic
Photo 11h
Charles Baudelaire
Woodburytype portrait attributed to Etienne Cavat in 1862
Public Domain
Photo 11i
Charles Simic
GFDL 1.2
Photo 11j
Adonis and Ronny Someck
Copyright granted by Ronny Someck
Photo 11k
T.S.
Eliot inn 1934
Public Domain
Photo 11l
Hayim Nachman Bialik in 1923
Public Domain
Photo 11m
Yehuda Amichai
Public Domain
Photo 11n
Amir Gilboa
Public Domain
Photo 11o
David Avidan
Public Domain
Photo 11p
Yona
Volach
Public Domain
Photo 11q
Lea Goldberg in 1946
Public Domain
Photo 12a
Fiodor Dostoyevsky in 1872
Public Domain
Photo 12s
Antonio Skarmeta
Photo 13
jacket cover of Exile
Photo
14
Ronny and daughter Shirley
Photo 15
The
Laughing Button
Photo
16
The
Monkey Tough, Monkey Bluff
Photo 17
Ronny Someck
Copyright granted by Ronny Someck
Photo
18
The Milk Underground
Photo 19
Ronny Someck baby photo 1954
Copyright granted by Ronny Someck
Photo 20
Egyptian siger Um Kulthum in 1968
Public Domain
Photo
21
Photo
of Grandfather Salah
Copyright granted by Ronny Someck
Photo
22
1955 Someck family, Ronny Someck in the middle.
Photo
23a
"Baghdad" in Hebrew
Photo 23b
Ronny Someck giving a poetry reading.
Copyright granted by Ronny Someck
Photo
24
King David playing the harp
Attributed to Domenico Zampieri
Public Domain
Photo 25
Painting Don't Shoot The Piano Player
Public Domain
Photo
26
Ronny Someck and wife Liora on their wedding day in 1985
Copyright granted by Ronnny Someck.
Photo 27
Ronny and Liora Someck near Mezada in 2016
Copyright granted by Ronny Someck.
