Bringing Innovation to Hebrew Poetry Since the 1950s: Natan Zach

Published: July 25, 2018, 10:57 a.m.

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Natan Zach was born in 1930 in Berlin, and he immigrated to Haifa in 1936. He has had a great influence on the development of modern Hebrew poetry as editor and critic, as well as translator and poet.\\xa0

In an article from 1959, Zach favored \\u2018a \\u201cpoetics of modesty\\u201d: simplicity in theme, syntax, and diction; understated rhetoric, avoidance of symbolistic intricacy, and flexible rhyme patterns; metrical and rhythmic structures that follow and reflect the flow of conversational language, refraining from lofty, elevated, cerebral, and flashy poetic devices and structures while employing irony in a subtle, distilled fashion; in short, an appealingly simple poetics without undue simplification.

Text:

Peter Cole: Hymns and Qualms. Selected Poems and Translations. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017.

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