Wings

Poetry. Jewish Studies. Middle Eastern Studies. Religion & Spirituality. In WINGS, Israeli poet Amir Or's thirteenth book of poetry, transcendence is not a flight from the concrete intimacy of history and experience, but an opening within it, an interrogation of its baffling sweep, its beauty and its violence, that reveals, in the heart of unity, a profound multiplicity, the community of love, and the endless labor of birth. In these poems, we hear the sky speak with a music that seems to be wrought of hard roads, and vice versa: we see heaven and earth as shimmering mirages of each other, and the pilgrim's journey beyond time, towards liberation, as the secret heart of both.

This bilingual edition follows WINGS with an encore, the brief Basho-like sequence Travelog, both translated by poet Seth Michelson. It also includes explanatory notes and an insightful critical afterword by the translator, and an interview with Amir Or by Nevena Milojevic.