Morgenstern, Gach, Dayan inaugurate LFJCC’s 2023-24 Poetry Season

By Eileen Wingard

Eileen Wingard

LA JOLLA, California — Jewish Poets—Jewish Voices got off to a great start Tuesday evening, November 28, in the Astor Judaica Library of the Lawrence Family JCC. This first program of the 2023-4 season featured Felicia Morgenstern, Larry Gach and Maya Tevet Dayan.

Felicia Morgenstern began with humorous poetry that brought laughter to her listeners, before offering more serious pieces, inspired by her students. She is a transplant from Maryland and edits a literary journal.

Larry Gach, a retired mechanical engineer from New York, lives in Carlsbad and teaches poetry at the Jewish Collaborative. The example below is about his own grandfather and father.

Maya Tevet Dayan, visiting professor from Tel Aviv University, is teaching poetry this semester at San Diego State University. She was introduced by Susan Lapidus, CEO of the Murray Galinson San Diego Israel Initiative, the organization which brought Dayan to teach in San Diego. Her poems revealed why she has garnered many prizes, including the Israel Prime Minister’s Prize.

The featured poets were followed by a half hour of open mic during which nine local poets read their work.

Here are examples from each of the featured poets:

mona by felicia morgenstern

your name
like your seashell-pink hands
and smaller-still fingers

is so delicate

they say you fell
fell hard enough
to break your back
and one of your legs

i’ve heard this is possible
but i’ve never known someone
to really break a back
a leg maybe
but never a back

and you
so delicate
with bones brittle
like the wishbone of a turkey
to be snapped
on someone else’s wish

there were no cars
no screeching of brakes
black swirls on cement

no
you were at home
you later told nina and lucy
standing high
so high

so very high up
on a ladder
and this is how it happened
your falling
and why your body hurts

and lays limp
on holy cross hospital sheets
starched and pale gray
in a room that smells
the color of its walls

yellow
yellow

the neighbors say
the neighbors say
your dad did it

saw you talking to a boy
and hit as he hits

when he thinks
of what his life would be like
if you left him behind

but i don’t
i don’t believe
this is true

i believe
i believe
what nina and lucy say
that you fell
fell from high

so high
so very
high up

this
this
i believe
maybe not the part
about the ladder

but yes
yes
i can see you
high
so high
so very high up

your peach-pale arms reaching
reaching for the sky
the stars
the stars
cat’s eyes
in the sky

the ones you watch
watch from your princess-pink bedroom window
when locked in your room
your father
working a double
at the 7 eleven on 31st

or the mcdonald’s
twelve bus stops away
the jobs he works
when he isn’t drinking

or yelling at your mother
or hitting you
for talking to boys
for being so pretty

reach
mona
reach

mona
with stars
in her eyes
but never
in her hair

reach
mona
reach

the stars
will always
be there
*

MEYER AND ABE by Larry Gach

Meyer pushed his cart in 1910
On the Minsk to Brooklyn Expressway
Selling things that were the remnants of the last pogrom.
What some people called “junk”
He called “a ticket for Rose.”
By 1940 the cart had grown into a fleet of trucks
Although it sometimes wasn’t clear
Who was driver and who was driven
And the “junk” had ripened into “salvage”
What didn’t ripen was the fruit of his loins
Abie lost (or never had) the respect of Meyer and himself
And managed to lose the business in 1960
To booze, gambling, and the mob
All Abe left his son were
Memories of better days
And questions that nobody can answer.

 

I Want An Electric Juicer by Maya Tevet Dayan
[Translated by Jane Medved]

Why electric? What’s wrong with the real kind?
my dead grandmother asks. All of our lives
we squeezed oranges by hand.

Why should she work so hard if there’s an easier way?
That’s my mother, from her life in the beyond.

You two are always looking to spend money,
my grandmother grumbles. An entire life and death,
and she’s still lecturing us.

Buy yourself one and I’ll pay for it, my mother ends the discussion,
as if she still has a bank account,
as if I am not paying from my pocket
for all the gifts she has bought me, since her death.

I’ll buy it for you, Bubbaleh,
my grandmother concedes, lifting
the burden, as usual, from my mother.

After all, she has left us a goodly amount
from all the taxis she never rode,
the leftover food she refused to throw away,
the tea bag she dipped into the same cup until it fainted,
the socks she darned. What will I leave behind,

except for tormented conversations with the dead?
What will I manage to put aside from all the coins
accumulated on my behalf, through endless hours of labor,
human lives, hard working generations. I don’t even like

oranges. But you need vitamin C for your health, my dead
grandmother interjects. See, we are starting up again.

The next Jewish Poets–Jewish Voices program will be on Tuesday evening, January 16 at 7 p.m. and will feature Amelia Glaser, Adam Deutch, and the poetry of Herb Brin read by his son, David Brin.
*
Eileen Wingard is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. She may be contacted via eileen.wingard@sdjewishworld.com