Poems from the Diwan

Yehuda Halevi, who wrote both secular and devotional poems, is considered one of the finest poets in post-biblical Hebrew literature. Suffused with warmth, moving easily between the mundane and the otherworldly, and, above all, delicately elegiac, the poet's voice cuts across all the literary genres and religious modes on which he drew. Born in the second half of the 11th century, Halevi wandered in his youth between Muslim and Christian Spain before settling in Cordoba around 1110. Towards the end of his life, to the amazement and consternation of his friends and admirers, he set out on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, at the time under Crusader rule. He arrived in Alexandria in 1140 and recorded his perilous sea voyage in a celebrated sequence of poems, remarkable for their fusion of startling realism and religious longing. Months later Halevi embarked for Palestine. The exact date, location and circumstances of his death have remained a mystery. Gabriel Levin was born in France in 1948 and grew up in the United States and Israel. His first collection of poems, Sleepers of Beulah, was published in 1992 and his mucb-praised second collection, Ostraca, appeared in late 1999. He lives in Jerusalem.

Author: Yehuda Halevi
Publisher: Anvil Press Poetry
Published: 06/01/2004
Pages: 192
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.52lbs
Size: 8.44h x 5.54w x 0.57d
ISBN13: 9780856463334
ISBN10: 0856463337
BISAC Categories:
- Poetry | General

About the Author
Born in the second half of the 11th century, Halevi wandered in his youth between Muslim and Christian Spain before settling in Cordoba around 1110. He later set out on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, at the time under Crusader rule. The exact circumstances of his death have remained a mystery.

Gabriel Levin was born in France, grew up in the United States, and has lived in Jerusalem since 1972. He has published two collections of poetry and several translations from Hebrew, French and Arabic. He is a founding editor of Ibis Editions, a small press established in Jerusalem in 1997 for the publication, in English, of literature from the Levant.