This year once again, we had hoped to hold the launch of Volume 48 of the Voices Israel Anthology with a face-to-face event at the Netanya Stage Bar. But amid warnings of an upcoming flu-plus-Covid wave this winter, our members preferred to play it safe. So on October 25th 2022, 41 people — mainly members but also a few guests and non-members whose poems had been published in the Anthology – gathered via Zoom. Several came from the USA, Canada, the UK, and Ireland.
30 poets read one of their poems from the Anthology, and another four asked for proxy readers, making a total of 34 poets from the 75 whose poems were published in the Anthology.
We sent out the Anthology to our members in mid-August. Once again, we received many compliments on its appearance and its content. The design is due to Avril Meallem, who was unable to continue to produce the Anthology but whose templates from last year we used for it; the content, as usual, to Dina Yehuda, our long-term, dedicated Chief Editor. She has yet again produced a volume containing a series of quality poems arranged in a logical flow of themes. We can’t express our gratefulness and admiration with a presentation via Zoom, so have sent her the next best thing – a Steimatsky gift card as a small token of our appreciation.
Heartfelt thanks also to the new editorial team of Eli Ben-Joseph, Wendy Blumfield, and Elana Dorfman. Thanks too, to Helen bar-Lev, for agreeing to the use of her lovely painting “Detail of Jerusalem” which adds so much to the Anthology’s front cover, and for doing the final proof-read. And last but not least, to our Treasurer Chanita Millman, who not only handles the financial side of anthology orders but also mails out, with unfailing promptness and accuracy, the right number of copies to members and others who have ordered them, year after year. In this as in so many Voices activities – we couldn’t do it without her!
As usual, we recorded the event on Zoom, and the video is on our YouTube channel. It may also be viewed directly via this link.
More information about the annual Anthology and how to submit poems to it is detailed under Voices Israel Anthology from the main menu.
Below we’ve put a few screenshots from the video, to give a feel of the event.
And, from left to right, some of our poets: Julie Mendelson, Iris Dan, Judy Koren, reading their poems; then Mark Elber (joining us from the USA), Yiskah Rosenfeld (also attending from the USA), and Rachel Neiman.
Voices Israel Group of Poets in English 