Desert flowers with deep roots

Published: May 13, 2015, 3:27 p.m.

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\\u201c... Hanging by a thread, my fathers jostle together,
A sleeve of Hispania cloth permeated with the scent of jasmine
On an austere robe from the lands of years gone by
On a breeze bearing blows, payes and pelts\\u2026\\u201d

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So reads a section from \\u201cFathers,\\u201d a poem by Tel Aviv-born novelist, poet, and theater director Michal Govrin, whose poetry our host Marcela Sulak introduces to us today. The daughter of an Israeli pioneer father and a mother who survived the Holocaust, Govrin\\u2019s work is concerned with the legacy of trauma left to children of Holocaust survivors.

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Govrin has described her poems as the flowers of a desert plant with very deep roots; some have roots as deep as fifteen feet, but when we see the flower we never imagine how much of the plant remains invisible to the eye.

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