In 2018, Fathom interviewed Adi Keissar, an Israeli poet of Yeminite descent and founder of Ars Poetica, a project which initiated a new wave of Mizrahi poetry. The project blends poetry readings and music with a Middle Eastern party. Since her first book of poetry Black on Black appeared in 2014, Keissar has published three additional collections. Referred to by Haaretz as the most influential poet working in Israel today, Keissar told Fathom her hopes for an Israel that could cope with a diversity of narratives and is not threatened by the idea of a meeting between cultures. She also discussed her work. ‘When I read poetry’, she said, ‘I want to feel something and be surprised. And I want to believe what I’m hearing.’

The poem below, written after the events of 7 October, indeed makes the reader feel. It was first published in Hebrew in late October 2023 in the literature and culture supplement of Yediot Ahronot. The translation is the author’s.

I’m not sure

if I could go back to life this time

A morning run, bike trip, party

without the face of the dead

haunting me

I’m not sure

if I could come back alive this time

An empty baby bed, a blanket

coloured red.

What I’m sure of

Automatic weapons, fire and smoke

shattered windows and a broken door

sirens going up and down

ashes and wreckage

The world is burning

and I am the flames

The hours blended

also, the days

At night came the dreams

and the mosquitos

to suck my skin

As from a hidden signal

swirled around me

all night

buzzed in the darkness

asked for my blood.

All through the night

the air stood still

between me and the world

not going in and not coming out

In the morning I opened a window

the sun was shining in the sky

the silence filled the empty streets

I’m not sure

if I could ever hear silence

that doesn’t hide a disaster within.