Front Cover
Hey,
I am such a Brazilian woman
Crying, laughing
Hoping, fearing
Hating, loving
Me, you
And all in a such a big way
I
Am Such a Brazilian Woman
by Iara Czeresnia and Ze'ev Barkan
To my father and mother, Zezinho, my
children and life
English translation of the original
Hebrew script by Ze'ev Barkan
Poetry translation edited by Avril
Meallem
Hebrew Edition Iton 77 Publishing
House, Tel Aviv, Israel, August 2017
©
Iara Czeresnia & Ze-ev Barkan
zeevveez@gmail.com Tel. -972-2-6785636
Chapter 1 First Kiss
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, loneliness, 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
for 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 -
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!
Iara:
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.
Ze'ev:
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.
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
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
