Latset!

Latset! An Anthology against the War in Gaza is currently available as a free pdf download (Hebrew only).  In Hebrew, "latset" means "to leave, get out" and is used in this context as an imperative.  The anthology represents a collaboration between poets and visual artists, some of whom may be familiar names outside of Israel.  The work of the poet Aharon Shabtai, for instance, has been widely translated.  I'd also like to highlight the participation of the poets Salman Masalha, Rami Saari, Merhav Yeshurun and Efrat Mishori.  The anthology, Mati Shmuelof writes, "has been prepared with great urgency and rage, at the outbreak of the war, as an act of emergency protest."  It is also, "a collaboration of hope."  A number of journals came together to put together this anthology, including Daka, which I wrote about in an earlier post.  For those who don't read Hebrew, here's my translation of a poem that I thought was particularly outstanding:

She was killed in Gaza

by Roni Hirsch

Maybe I was killed today

I do not know

there were discrepancies

in the international news reports

maybe I was killed today in Gaza

my family and I embraced and watched the blue sky

afterwards we scattered, maybe it happened then

and maybe we were still together

I went back to the past

the war was still before us

I do not know

in which one I was killed

maybe it was World War II

and Italian planes bombed Tel Aviv