Chapter 1 First Kiss
from the Hebrew book, I Am Such a
Brazilian Woman
by Iara Czeresnia and Ze'ev Barkan,
Iton 77, Tel Aviv, Israel, 2017
Translated by Ze'ev Barkan
Iara:
Shalom Ze'ev,
I am Iara Czeresnia, the Brazilian friend of Shachar.
I learned to speak Hebrew when I was 13 and now, when I am 50, I learned to
write and read in this wonderful language. Not that I did not know anything and
it was a kind of miracle ... it was somehow kept inside of me. I lived in
Israel between 1965 and 1969, so I learned to read and write a little. So, this
is also the language of my childhood. It was fun to read what you wrote on the
Internet about the senses. Bye - Iara.
Ze'ev:
It makes me very happy that you read and loved what
I wrote. I am also always delighted to be in touch with lovers of the Hebrew
language.
Iara:
Here is the first poem I ever wrote:
The words
dance in my mind, zoom in zoom out
Like
clouds
Cover the
sunlight
Darken my
thoughts.
Where do
they lead?
To pain, to
loneliness, to yearning.
Words are
born when there is nothingness instead of being
There is
no chair, but there is a word for the picture in the mind of a chair which is not
there
Then
there's a chair in the mind.
And the
loved ones who are not here?
Their names
bring them or the longing to them?
Their
names remind us that they are not here.
When will
they be?
Will they
be?
Every new road
is an invitation for the time to bring me new roads
Where do
the new roads lead?
I'm immersed
in horror
Ze'ev:
Amazing! This poem has depth. It is true that it
speaks in simple words, but it has originality, it sounds beautiful. One can feel
that the person behind the poem is a creative person. If you have or will have
more poems please send them to me.
Iara:
Here is what I wrote in Portuguese, a memory from
Klil, I was there with Shachar a few months ago, and then translated it for him
so that he could understand:
Slowly, the sun brightens the blue of the
Mediterranean that spreads far away, the mirror of the silence and the strange
peace that dwell in my loneliness. A modest balcony, a swinging hammock, the
fragrance of the morning mixes with the tobacco smell of a lit cigarette and
the smell of fresh hot Turkish coffee. The birds sing with the sounds of the wind,
giving birth to the day. The memories of a goddess dancing in the evening, a
cloth in her hand, on the same balcony, turn the floor into a ballroom. Always
the distant sea, takes salty tears out of my eyes, bits of the same sea. Gracias
A La Vida!
Ze'ev:
I've polished what you wrote and now it's a poem which
you can send to Shachar if you want:
The sun
brightens the blue color of the Mediterranean that spreads in the distance
The mirror
of the silence and the strange peace that dwell in my loneliness.
Always the
sea extracts salty tears out of my eyes
The sun brightens
the blue color
of the Mediterranean
that
spreads in the distance -
a mirror of the silence and strange peace
that dwell in my
loneliness.
Always the sea
extracts salty tears from my eyes
Now that we discovered that you are a poet you must
start writing. What a wonderful thing!
Tender / Touch / Like First Kiss / / Fireworks /
Flowers / Birds in the Heart /
First Touch / Second Touch / New Touch / Old Touch / Flowers / Birds / Kisses / Fireworks
First Touch / Second Touch / New Touch / Old Touch / Flowers / Birds / Kisses / Fireworks
Ze'ev:
The beginning is good, all these short sentences.
The rest is too repetitive. A poem should surprise. Every word should be
surprising. You need to develop the theme of the kiss.
Iara:
What are the hands and feet doing / When the tongue
does not know yet / And the lips are inside the teeth? / Hands / Looking for
breasts / Finding mouth and ears / The feet are melting / And the tongue is
still learning / It is possible to breathe for a moment
You really take me seriously, it's hard to believe
it's worth it. I'm still in great excitement, and everything seems to me like a
game.
In this poem, I tried to describe a first kiss. I
saw a funny picture: a boy and a girl looking in the eyes, not knowing where to
put their hands. Approaching with an open mouth, afraid of the teeth. Do not
know whether to close or open the mouth. And what about the glasses? The hands
do not know whether to hug or pry, afraid of the breasts, go up to the
shoulders, reach the ears. And the tongue still does not know whether to get in
or out. And now the lips come in between the teeth. The feet melt.
Here's your new poem:
A boy and a girl looking in the
eyes -
Heads approaching
Open mouth
Afraid of the teeth
Do not know what to do with
The hands
The legs
The glasses
The hands, that are afraid of
the breasts,
Go up to the shoulders
Reach the ears
The tongue is undecided: to get
out or to go in?
The lips come in between the
teeth.
The feet melt
Now it is possible to breath
Iara:
It makes me happy to have so few corrections!! I
begin to understand that you have to say everything, as in analysis, if we want
people to understand what we mean. We have to show, without fear, if not, they
will not understand ... I was ashamed of the game, of the nonsense. It is not
easy to write.
Ze'ev:
<It is not easy to write> There are a few
simple things that help: check words in the dictionary. Do not waste energy
over too many images. The main thing is
not to say what you've heard; - write new
things. In prose, - every sentence has to be new. In poetry, - every word. We
know when a poem is good, and we remember it. It's like a kick in the face,
something you do not forget.
Iara:
Inside my eyes I saw the lights of your eyes
lighting up my soul / Adam and Eve when they saw their naked bodies realized
their death.
What were they ashamed of? Shame is a kind of fear,
and fear is always connected to fear of death. In my opinion creation-itself
tells about the stages of development: at first, it's all one, because in the
womb the baby and the mother are really one. Then there's light, we're born,
but we do not know yet that it's not one, that it's two. We distinguish between
air and water (breathing), Sea and land (Maybe breasts full of milk versus
hunger), and only then there's a place for thinking (that plants and animals
will grow), and the mother begins naming everything, teaching what is cold,
what hurts, what hunger is, and what is I and what is you.
You appeared in my dream in the form of the poet
Vinícius de Moraes / my mother appeared in the form of a rose / and I smiled
joyfully. I do not know what you look like ... and my mother was called Rosa.
Vinícius de Moraes has songs that are known all over the world. One of them is
- Garota de Ipanema - the girl from Ipanema, which had been translated into
Hebrew.
Ze'ev:
You
appeared in my dream
in the form of Vinícius de Moraes
My mother
appeared in the form of a rose
I smiled
happily
Iara:
Three sunflowers / In a flowerpot / Were falling off
/ Thousands of sunflowers /In a near- the- border-field / Caused my soul /To
blossom
Ze'ev:
I did not understand what had happened.
Sunflowers do not fall off.
"My soul" is a worn-out word that should
not be used.
Iara:
I want to say that the sunflower field, about which
I read in the book written by Shachar, woke me up. His sunflowers were more
vivid than the flowers I had in my flowerpot.
Here's a new option:
Sunflowers lust for the light since dawn / sinking
into them / direct rays of sun / sucking their heat / arousing old / forgotten
passions in me / like a shadow in the water
Ze'ev:
Sunflowers
lust for the light since dawn
For the
straight rays of the sun
And their
warmth
They arouse
Forgotten old
passions
Like a shadow
in the water
Iara:
The pain / When it is written on a piece of paper / Becomes
a written word – That's all
Ze'ev:
Pain passes through words like an epidemic. Sartre
wrote a novel called "The Nausea," and many young Europeans imitated
the protagonist of the novel, displaying poses of nausea in dress, in speech.
Pain inspires identification. You do not read about suffering in the paper and
say: "This is something I already know". It touches you.
Iara:
I'm talking about inner pain, when you write about
it, and suddenly it looks different. I have this feeling when I write. I just saw
a film by Almodóvar, and I'm sure that if he had not made films he would have
gone mad. The words organize the senses, and then people don't lose their minds.
Maybe I'm talking about a certain pain, pain of confusion, fear, pain about
what is not known ...
Ze'ev:
There is writing that heals. As an expert on
psychiatry, you probably know that. When people write they process their
traumatic experience, break it apart, dissolve it. It starts with doing
something, and by not standing aside with that lump in your throat, helplessly.
Iara:
There is a Brazilian writer I love very much,
Clarice Lispector, who said she wrote in order not to die. Maybe I was trying
to talk from the point of view of the writer, not the reader. If it is written
with all your heart, the reader will also feel it ... But I also think that you
can never describe in words exactly what you feel. When you write about a
smell, you do not actually smell. Everyone imagines something else. I'm
confused ...
Ze'ev:
Why are you writing?
Iara:
You've heard my thoughts. This conversation brought
me a thousand questions. Why am I writing? Why in Hebrew? Why to you? I do not
have an answer. But now that I started it is as if I'd been waiting for it all
my life. Every little thing I write and need to think about illuminates
something else. When a poem comes out, when it seems ready, when I feel
something is understood, it feels great. I feel like continuing. And I am very
afraid that it will disappear and I will lose everything, that it's all an
illusion, if not a hallucination. That everything would suddenly explode in the
air like a balloon ... that it is all virtual, unreal.
I write because I don't succeed not to write / Since
I started / Everything around me looks different / The eyes are more accurate /
As if I have the correct glasses / The colors are clearer / And I see myself / In
what I write / Reveal someone I did not know / Another me / And maybe in
writing I invent/ A virtual world / A Iara that does not exist / And the
endless question / Who am I / Returns
Ze'ev:
When I
write
The eyes
sharpen
As if I have
the right glasses
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