Gili Haimovich- Izrael

Gili Haimovich is a prizewinning bilingual poet in Hebrew and English. She won the international Italian poetry competition Ossi di Seppia for best foreign poet (2019) and awarded as an outstanding artist by the Ministry of Culture, (Israel, 2015) among other nominations. Both of her last books in Hebrew Landing Lights, (2017) and Baby Girl, (2014) won grants from The Acum Association of Authors and her second book Reflected Like Joy, (2002) won The Pais Grant for Culture. She is the author of the poetry book Promised Lands (2020) and two short collections: Sideways Roots (2017), and Living on a Blank Page (2008) written originally in English, six volumes of poetry in Hebrew, a multi lingual book, Note (2019) and have book length translations in French and Serbian. Her poems are translated into 30 languages, featured in anthologies, festivals and journals worldwide such as World Literature Today, Poetry International, International Poetry Review, LRC – The Literary Review of Canada, Asymptote, Tok – Writing the New Toronto, New Voices – Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust and 101 Jewish Poems for the Third Millennium as well as publications in major journals and anthologies in Israel such as The Most Beautiful Poems in Hebrew – A Hundred Years of Israeli Poetry and A Naked Queen – An Anthology of Israeli Social Protest Poetry. Gili is also a literary translator, visual artist and a writing focuses arts therapist, facilitating groups and individuals in creative writing and writing as a therapeutic tool in In Israel and other countries such as Canada and India.    

Like an Apology

Though my hands are beaten

Their ability to feel hasn’t been damaged

But has darkened the ability to be accurate

As when leaving trails on paper

The Dragonfly

I’m ashamed to admit but

the wings of the dragonfly I was

were made of glass.

Her delicate yet roachy body buzzed

in a pleasant but mechanical way.

I’m embarrassed to look at her,

I believe it’s still possible

to see her there.

Between you and me, what blew her cover,

were the wings attached to her small body

not the bolt, but

the usual flesh and bones and muscles

flapping with the energy of a female.