Sloan-Kettering: Poems

(Paperback)

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New York City Many readers already know of the poet Abba Kovner (1918-1987) as the charismatic Jewish leader who engineered the Vilna ghetto uprising, famously urging his comrades not to go "like sheep to the slaughter." After the war, he became a powerful voice in orchestrating the resettlement of Holocaust survivors to a new homeland. Also a beloved master of Hebrew literature, Kovner was a poet, novelist, and essayist whose work is just beginning to reach the English-speaking audience. This translation brings his visionary gift to us in a new context- at the end of his life, dying of cancer in Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, Kovner faced his last great battle-one he knew he would lose. But the luminous verses in his book, written in the brief weeks before he died, are a testament to a life lived in an unflinching manner, by one who, as he writes, "began to love in times of disgust." Weaving together his perceptions of the present moment ("How little we need / to be happy- a half kilo increase in weight, / two circuits of the corridors"); sorrow at leaving the world (his wife knit- ting at his bedside, the chatter of his grandsons); the dramatic loss of his vocal cords ("Have I no right to die / while still alive"); and memories of his heroic comrades in the Baltic forest, Kovner emerges from these pages with yet another kind of heroism. His continual movement toward freedom and his desire to give a complete account of the gift of life, even as that life is failing, make his words deeply moving. Finally, these poems are utterly unique because of the stature of their speaker-as Leon Wieseltier states in his foreword, "Kovner was one of the most valiant men in Jewish history, one of the most valiant men in modern history." His poetry stands out because of the extraordinary clarity and presence of mind with which he addresses both historical and personal struggles. Throughout, Abba Kovner offers "words, like a fountain flowing, cascading / with confidence, telling no lies "-words of radiant triumph that will continue to resound loud and clear.

Reviews

A work of self-commemoration that takes the side of continuing existence . . . A book written from the dark side of alienation . . . it shimmers with the dark radiancethe stark beautyof last things.
Edward Hirsch, The New York Times Book Review

Moving . . . In these plainspoken poems . . . Kovner meditates on the possibility of heroism in the face of illness.
The New Yorker

"Abba Kovner wrote about his impending death with a broken hearta heart laid open to longing, to memory, to love, to the ugly details of cancer treatment. The Sloan-Kettering Poems are unsentimentally, passionately, furiously alive."
Anita Diamant (author of Saying Kaddish, The Red Tent, and Good Harbor)

"Here is a work of art, masterfully presented."
A.B. Yehoshua

"Abba Kovner was one of the greatest poet-fighters in the Jewish tradition. I grew up in his light, as did many of those of my generation. He was a hero to us all, and a splendid poet. To read, hear, experience the intimacy of his last monthsthat is something very powerful."
Chaim Potok

"These are beautiful, stern, lacerating poems written by a genuine hero as he was dying of cancer. They detail his struggle to bear witness to the destruction of his body and the perseverance of his will and identity. It is a terrifying but superb legacy he has given us."
Marge Piercy

"In this deeply moving collection, Kovner shows the same greatness of spirit in confronting cancer that he showed in confronting Nazis in the Vilna ghetto."
Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Author Bio

ABBA KOVNER (1918-1987) was born in Sebastopol, Russia, and was a leader in the Vilna ghetto uprising during World War II. After the war, he helped take European Jews into Palestine, where he settled with his wife. In 1970, he won the Israel Prize for Literature.