Review by langenbrat -- The Immigrant's Lament

[langenbrat]

[Following is a volunteer review of "The Immigrant's Lament" by Mois benarroch.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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I rate The Immigrant's Lament by Mois Benarroc three out of four stars. It was originally published in Hebrew in 1994, and has only been available to English speakers since 2016. The author was born in Morocco but immigrated to Israel as a child. The book contains fifty-three poems.

The poems vary in length and content, tone and emotion. Some are remembrances of a childhood lost. Some are political. Some are conflicted, portraying the author's search to find himself. They are all in freestyle verse, flowing and ebbing with the theme of the poem.

I don't think these poems are meant to be taken at face value. They are meant to be thought about, meant to linger in your mind for you to chew on. There is hidden meaning couched in the content. You can read them quickly, but you'll lose a lot of the meaning.

Many of the poems read like a diary entry. Not a “Dear diary, today I...” kind of diary entry but the kind that forces raw emotion into words and shapes that can be read and spoken and considered. The author expresses anguish, for instance, that people got upset over the destruction of a Buddha statue but didn't seem bothered by the deaths of people. Another poem talks about his father and grandfather.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes poetry but isn't interested in flowery verse. It's also a good choice for people new to poetry, as there is substance and grit in it. It's also a good choice for anyone who has ever felt out of place after a move or other event, or anyone interested in the recent history of Israel. I didn't give the book four stars because I found that the author reused parts of some poems in others and in one case actually took the last four lines of one poem and set it aside as a whole new poem. I noted a few typos that did not detract from the flow and are likely just translation errors. Also, there were a few formatting errors such as a page containing only the title of the poem and the poem itself being on the next page. I am not a poetry enthusiast, but I did enjoy this book. I found myself going back and reading parts of it out loud to my husband so he could share it with me.

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The Immigrant's Lament
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