Shekhina: Forty Poems

by Norma Farber

83 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1984

Reviews

[Zuska · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read this in the mid-80s, I guess around when it was published.
These poems are deeply felt, wise and insightful. Divided into four sections, the first considers notable women of Jewish history. "In Shushan the Palace" tells the story of Vashti, the first wife of King Ahasuerus before Esther, a lilting song that ends with Vashti's freedom and the hint of Esther's story to come. Poems in the second section are meditations on Mary as mother, juxtaposed with consideration of Judas's mother, and an imagined interaction between the two. The third section looks at Pocohantas, Anne Hutchinson, Mary Dyer, the witches of Salem - all remarkable for the perspective and storytelling - and in a poem about the women of the Mayflower, "Our Women To Wash", coming to land for the first time to do their wash, Farber takes us right into the heart of that moment, letting us see and feel something of what the women who made that voyage might have felt the first time they went ashore in America.

"Following the men who led us as a guard,
we came to water: not the mighty ocean
which separated us as a main bar and gulf
from civil world: but sweet and small, a pond,
secure from burly discipline of tides,
perfection in slight compass, with all its outline
visible, round and friendly, not forever
stretching out of view. /Upon our knees
in leafmeal autumn carpetry we fell,
soaking, beating, scrubbing, rinsing, wringing,
with housewife zeal such as we had not exercised
whole months on end."

The reader harkens back to Farber's earlier poem in section one, "Women Making Beds In The Morning":

"Women making beds in the morning
pull apart night's sloven pucker,
shake its pillow, tousled emblem
warm still, deep with world abandoned,
rout its dark, derange its passion,
press its dream from breast and bedstead,
flap its sheets, renew its standards,
banners, broadsides, burgees, pennants,
sails outbellied, clothes outbillowed,
wavered, flouted, flaunted, tauntened
smack as the oceanwave of morning."

The last section contains only two poems, "In Defense of Men" in which each stanza begins with the admonishment "Look not for ladies" and ends

"Look not for ladies: look for women
who surely and only
in this unseemly this inhuman
time shall fire, shall fierce you manly."

Words suitable for our troubled times.

The last poem is a long sorrowful and haunting lament and memorium for the 11 Israeli coaches and athletes murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Olympic games in 1972.

This was a good book book to revisit in this season of Hanukkah and Christmas, as I wait for the new year, hoping for the best, fearing the worst.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I knew Norma Farber (1909-1984) as the author of delightful and sometimes quirky poems for children about animals and the Nativity. This collection of poetry, published the year she died, draws on the Shekhina, a Hebrew word, which occurs in rabbinic literature, often translated as "dwelling" or "the dwelling of the presence of God." The first section of poems are primary about women from Jewish scriptures; the second takes up Mary the mother of Jesus and the woman who birthed Judas; the third focuses on women in the American colonies; the final section is primarily her award-winning poem "A New Haggadah." Serious poetry.