Jerusalem: An Anthology of Jewish Canadian Poetry

Norman Ravvin is an assistant professor of English at the University of
New Brunswick. He is the author of Café des Westens, Sex, Skyscrapers,
and Standard Yiddish, and A House of Words.

The overarching objective of this anthology is to reveal how “the
resonance of Jerusalem continues to inspire Jewish Canadian poets to
engage their tradition and identities.”

A.M. Klein, represented by a number of works, is shown at his most
masterfully elegiac as he writes, “These northern stars are scarabs in
my eyes. / Not any longer can I suffer them. / I will to Palestine. We
will arise / And seek the towers of Jerusalem.” A youthful Leonard
Cohen contributes a Klein-inspired piece called “Isaiah”: “Between
the mountains of spices / the cities thrust up pearl domes and filigree
spires. / Never before was Jerusalem so beautiful.”

There is an excellent selection of poems by Montreal- and Toronto-based
writers who have focused their craft on Jerusalem’s towers and domes.
Seymour Mayne, Kenneth Sherman, Shel Krakofsky, Steve Smith, and Miriam
Waddington all reveal their deepest sympathies and poetic yearnings,
together with a sense of the am-biguities connected with the modern
city. Like Irving Layton, they write hauntingly of Jerusalem’s ability
to “break men’s hearts ... and drive men mad” when they are forced
to meditate on the city’s “promised impossible peace.”