Poet, translator, intermodal expressive arts therapist, educator and groups' facilitator.
Camera Obscura Arts School, ISIS - International school for interdisciplinary Studies, Expressive Arts Therapy.
My book "Living on a Blank Page", came out in two editions, the second one includes my photographed work, 20007 and 2008, Blue Angel Press. In Hebrew I have five volumes of poetry: My recent one that was released this summer: "Baby Girl", (Emda Publishers, 2014),"Lint Season", (Pardes Publishers, 2011), "My Forces Fire" (Even Hoshen Publishers, 2007),"Reflected Like Joy" (Gvanim Publishers) and "Contact Glue" (Gvanim Publishers 2002).
Exhibitions:
Contact Photography Festival – group exhibit, Toronto 2012*
Koffler Centre of the Arts – group exhibit, Toronto 2007 *
Projects:
- First publication of French translations of my poems translated by Marilyne Bertoncini in the literary journal Recours au Poeme, 2013.
- Note, a video clip based on a poem of mine, created with the artist Ricardo Rojstacze, 2011
- Fulfilled Lake (the poem was also published in the journal Asymptote under the name: "Anger Sunk in a Lake") - a video clip based on a poem of mine, created with the artist Ricardo Rojstacze, 2011
- Blank Page: Poetry Based Performance, with dancer\singer Megan English, 2009.
- "A Dictionary For Those Who Don’t Need", a short film written and directed by me features the actress Mital Dohan, 1998. The film has won a grant from Israeli Ministry of Culture and was screened in both Canada and Israel. Excerpts from the film can be seen
These in addition to ongoing participation in literary festivals in Canada and Israel, poetry readings and leading workshops and classes of creative writing and expressive arts therapy.
Who and what makes you create?
Suffering and loneliness obviously, anything significant that happens in my life whether its joyful or not or sometimes both, immigration, the birth of my daughters, man, longings,places, significant others and maybe even more than that, the little things, the routine, the grayness of prosaic life: folding the laundry, going to the grocery store, picking up my girls from daycare. I might have been able to simply say it can be just about anything. All that I need is an "excuse" that evokes my inner world.
Walk us through your creative process. Any favorite place? Special preparation?
The initial creation can happen anywhere; therefore I'm always trying to carry with me something I can write on whether it's a notebook, cellophane or laptop. However, I always prefer to use my own hand writing initially and not to type right away, if possible. Usually, the next step will involve transferring it to the computer and editing. When poems pile up and seem to be connected to one another in a form that feels like it's creating a whole that that is greater than the simple sum of its parts, I create a manuscript for a book. The work on manuscript includes meticulous selection of poems and further editing, as well as setting the order of poem in a way that would benefit the poems and create additional meanings from the connections created between them.
What inspires you?
Sleeping, waking up and everything in-between – these different stages of being and not being always fascinated me. And of course, lovers, unrequited love, sex, children, animals, immigration, trees, landscapes, my clients (I change identifying details of course, and in any case, the poems are about me actually, not about them) and maybe above all, as I wrote above, the day-to-day life, the routine, the attempt mot to get completely grind in it but to try and be more an observer and with a perspective about it.
Tell us about a musical piece or a visual piece that reflects your persona.
I think that the first music that comes to my mind in relation to such a question are The Brandenburg concertos by Bach. Even though I don't necessarily listen much to classical music or even consider music to be a huge music fan, even though I do like it, I had few encounters with music that were very significant.
In my teens, right after I moved with my family to a new city, I got very sick with sever flu. Antibiotics didn't help and for a while I couldn't or enjoy anything, I didn't read or watched TV had no appetite and no ability to get off bed. Even a conversation or listening to the radio was too much for me. The only thing that brought me some relief was this music. I laid in bed for hours with my eyes shut and listened to this music. There was something about its clarity, the unsentimental sweetness; it's almost mathematical and abstract structure that supported me while I was drifting with high fever and sore throat. It took a while for me to recover; I had to be given two injections of extra large amount of antibiotics to recuperate since pills failed to help. Until them I laid in my bed for hours listening to this music. It served like some sort of focal point for me that helped me rise above how I was feeling. The same happened, though in a different way and with a different music, when I gave birth to my firstborn.
Any favorite quote?
" The art of losing isn't hard to master"
(the opening line of the poem "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop)
