Wings

by Amir Or, Seth Michelson (Translator)

Poetry. Jewish Studies. Middle Eastern Studies. Religion & Spirituality. In WINGS, Israeli poet Amir Or's thirteenth book of poetry, transcendence is not a flight from the concrete intimacy of history and experience, but an opening within it, an interrogation of its baffling sweep, its beauty and its violence, that reveals, in the heart of unity, a profound multiplicity, the community of love, and the endless labor of birth. In these poems, we hear the sky speak with a music that seems to be wrought of hard roads, and vice versa: we see heaven and earth as shimmering mirages of each other, and the pilgrim's journey beyond time, towards liberation, as the secret heart of both.

This bilingual edition follows WINGS with an encore, the brief Basho-like sequence "Travelog," both translated by poet Seth Michelson. It also includes explanatory notes and an insightful critical afterword by the translator, and an interview with Amir Or by Nevena Milojević.

270 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2018

About the author

Amir Or (born 1956), is an Israeli editor, translator and award-winning poet whose works have been published in more than 40 languages.

Amir Or was born in Tel Aviv. He has worked as a shepherd, builder and restaurateur. He studied philosophy and comparative religion at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he later lectured on Ancient Greek Religion. Or has published essays on poetry, classics and religious studies, and has taught creative writing in universities in Israel, Europe, USA and Japan.

Or is the author of twelve volumes of poetry as of late 2016, and his latest books in Hebrew are The Madman's Prophecy (2012), Loot (selected poems 1977-2013)(2013) and Wings (2015). Or also published a fictional epic in metered prose, The Song of Tahira (2001) and the novel The Kingdom (2015) about the life of king David and contemporary society.

He is the 2020 Winner of Golden Wreath in Struga Poetry Festival.