Dan Pagis (1930-1986) spent three of his adolescent years in a Nazi camp before arriving in Palestine in 1946. He became one of the most vibrant voices in modern Israeli poetry and is considered a major world poet of his generation.
A master scholar of Hebrew literature, Pagis drew fully on classical texts and infused his poetry with a centuries-old mysticism. Yet he also brought an immediacy and colloquialism to Hebrew poetry. In these superbly translated poems, Dan Pagis's voice can be heard celebrating the human spirit.
"he counts again in the open notebook/ all the bodies waiting for him in the square,/ camp within camp: only I/ am not there, am not there, am a mistake,/ turn off my eyes, quickly, erase my shadow./ I shall not want. The sum will be all right/ without me: here forever." Powerful and tragic, often surreal work from Paul Celan's compatriot and contemporary in Stephen Mitchell's skillful translation.