Poetryzine magazine presents the selected poems by the poet Tali Cohen Shabtai
I am Tali
I read prose only in the third person,
and only translated prose,
poetry, I also read in Hebrew.
I love Wislawa Szymborska, she copies in written word
the creation
in a brilliant fashion, and was recognized during her lifetime and was not among
the female poets who danced the ‘dance of death in life’
for that I lowered her credit.
I think it’s impossible to tag in one breath! A contemporary poetess with
characters that preserved the myth of the ‘cursed poetesses’. For they are
found only in the underground or tomb
There is no negotiation with this judgement
Mainstreamism repels me.
Bestsellers I do not touch.
I love nonfiction books.
Newspapers do not count at all as the writing and reading genre.
And my therapist I address in the second person singular
while omitting the third degree: “doctor”, it’s ok, it’s acceptable –
many poetesses have sat in my chair in front of him
Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath,
and those who ended up as their own hangman.
I often write in the first person singular and also to talk
It is
my way to circumvent
myself from afar.
And do not ask what I often write about! I do not like rhetorical questions that belittle
my intellect.
Tali Cohen Shabtai.
Margins of society
I love remote sights
they provide an answer to offer a glance at the lives of human beings on the margins of society,
it’s funny how much transparency there is in them – until I
see my own life within them.
Empty and fearful, the impure and lepers, homosexuals and transsexuals, prostitutes and
homeless harlots, junkies
gripped with insanity
those lacking everything, incurable patients
gangs.
These in these places
with an element devoid of any status – indeed
the status indicates location while the role indicates the active part
It is enough to smell the figurative stench
in remote places
to
understand the departure of these people
from what was once their role before life on the spine that involved
expectations of society
and secondly of their status, where they were before
in society
These are two sides of the coin: a status and a role that no longer attach importance to them in
these remote places when they are detached like a bank note to a whore on the margins of
society
in an urban alley
In typography, the margins are the blank part that is commonly left between the body text and
the edge of the sheet of paper
as is well known, the margins surround the text on its four sides and are usually blank
As in life just not from my angle of view
the core of the page is the text that the margins
delineate
but why wasn't it mentioned that there are other messages that characterize margins other
than being “blank”?
Like
constant headlines,
page numbering or footnotes. In the past it was customary to decorate the margins of
manuscripts with illustrations I am sure that even today.
How lovely such a notebook!
Think about it! If it weren't for the margins that are the page’s pillar, the text would not be
possible
whether the page margins
fill a space of 2.54 cm or less.
But!
Typically, the reader chooses to completely ignore the existence of the margins and continues
reading.
That's how it is in life, too.
Ideology as a way of life
Women like me, yes
have been added over the years to overshadow
what preceded us
that is mostly
not in line
with our agenda.
The accepted wording is
not what
will satisfy our desires –
Desires? Ours? Well then, I write
in the female first person plural
so as not to sound
as one who sins with pretension
as an individual woman,
however
I do not have many female friends for this journey
and those who have already passed
through a station or two
according to
the
fixed
rules
of society
A woman like me
tries
to stay free
from society
and at the same time
to be in it
with boycotts in double-digit ages
until the arrival
of the adolescence age
and beyond
I bear this bitter
in
sult
so far.
So! Spare judging
me
that “Cohen Shabtai
has rules
of her own…”
as Amos Levitan* wrote about me.
I came
with the goal of
satiating inspirations
based on
my theories
Therefore
I collect poems of the margins of humankind,
since
they have a greater potential
to waver from
the conventions –
just like me!
With 50 cents
in my wallet
I
live my own actions
lest
my inarticulate mouth
will be passed over and my eyes?
My eyes are blinded.
Women like me, particularly
at the beginning of
the fifteenth century
were persecuted and burned
for being independent and strong
at the Catholic church’s instruction
Nowadays? You can petition
the High Court of Justice.
So it is for a woman like me.
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