The poet and Talmud scholar examines Jewish texts, sexuality, and human vulnerability in poems that brim with wonder, sadness, sensuality, and humor.Kosman’s second volume in English explores Jewish texts —Bible, Talmud, midrash — alongside bodies, physical desires, military experiences, even a refrigerator. Demons and fantasy enter these poems; so do politics, so does God. These are not religious poems in a conventionally liturgical, “inspirational” sense; yet they point to the big questions that religion asks: about love, hate, desire, violence, transgression, disappointment.
“ I’ve long admired the poetry of Admiel Kosman, one of the leading poets of Israel, yes, certainly, but truly of the world… The passions are real in his poetry, and send a current through his vision of history, ancient to now, as if the Bible itself could dream. In these expert translations by Lisa Katz, Kosman’s poems come alive in English, al dente, with a delicious firmness and urgency, a tart quickness full of pleasure.” — Joshua Weiner,
Tikkun
“ Admiel Kosman’s poems are surreal and real, playful and serious, simple and complex. Reading them recalls F. Scott Fitzgerald’s comment: ‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.’ In these poems, replace ‘function’ with ‘sing,’ and rejoice.” — Natasha Saje, author of Vivarium and Windows and Doors: A Poet Reads Literary Theory
“ Kosman is called to teach: he is the poet rebbe who patiently, bravely, instructs his reader about the obstacles that must be overcome and the risks that must be taken if one is truly to encounter the Other, that person who is wholly apart from the self.” — Maeera Y. Schreiber, AJS Review
