In her lecture "Things My Grandfather Couldn't Have Written: The Evolution of Hebrew Literature," Israeli author Gail Hareven contends that Modern Hebrew has only recently "got free enough to try new games." She notes that while "it took years for a variety of jargons to develop, more time was needed in order to find ways to use them in writing." The Iraqi-born, Israeli poet Ronny Someck is one such writer who's trying these "new games" in Hebrew poetry. He's successful at it too.

Someck was born in Baghdad in 1951 and came to Israel as a young child. He studied Hebrew literature and philosophy at Tel Aviv University and drawing at the Avni Academy of Art. Beginning in 1976 with his first collection, Exile, Someck has become one of the first well-known poets in Israel from the Mizrahi tradition (Jews of African or Asian descent). Before him, most of the well-known poets were from the Ashkenazi tradition (Jews of European descent). Nowadays, he's an ever-popular poet appearing throughout Israel. From his thirteenth collection, So Much God, the poem we cotranslated has Ronny Someck's bridge-building, internationalist signature all over it. From an American actress singing a cover of a popular American artist's song to someone conquering Mount Everest—this is Ronny Someck in a nutshell.

In general, Someck's poetry ranges from literary allusions to street-life experience. He essentially pulls serious subjects down to earth while being self-effacing and witty. His work is one of juxtapositions between "high" and "low" culture—especially in the arts. His genius—besides his lovely metaphors throughout— thrives when his poetry seamlessly controls the pace and temperament of these contrasts.

Our cotranslations aim to bring out Someck's strengths that elevate and enliven his Hebrew poetry, while as much as possible keeping true to the Hebrew meaning and our interpretation of intent and effects. As we translate aloud, we continually hear and speak the words and rhythm of both languages. This interaction improves our abilities to capture the essence of Someck's Hebrew language in English. His language is plain-spoken, his rhythms direct and bold. Aloud, we recreate—not word-for-word copy— these Hebrew effects (not the Hebrew) in English. One continual challenge is putting the English in natural word order with Hebrew's corresponding emphasis. Unlike, for instance, the sharp difference an English speaker emphasizes in an active versus passive sentence construction, a Hebrew speaker can use different word orders that flow naturally in Hebrew to emphasize different aspects. So, in our translations we're likely to adjust—not disrupt— the poetic Hebrew line's length (and unit) in English as a way to keep a corresponding poetic emphasis, perhaps even with an enjambment. Other challenges are 1) finding some kind of equivalent colloquial expressions in English and 2) matching the infrequent rhymes that Someck uses—even if resorting to half-rhymes or assonance— especially if crucial to the meaning and intent of the poem. Take, for instance, in our translated poem the strong (and only) rhyme of "me" and "thee." This rhyme fuses his plain-spoken metaphor ("bubble of me") with clearly the more formal "thee," the only formal elevation of language in this poem (both in Hebrew and English). We hope this sublime pull—a crucial aspect of this poem—shows the speaker being overtaken by the powerful feeling that Johansson's voice (her art) evokes in him. Here and elsewhere, Someck's poetry absorbs and celebrates the powerful expression, tension/struggle, and accomplishment in all forms of art itself. However, as Gal Karniel in Ha'Aretz wrote, "The writing of Someck is life itself: as a way of thinking, not as art; as a connection between the inside and outside, between speech and writing."