Ed Codish: Selected Poems

Wisdom, dreams, sorrows, and joys are all revealed in this volume of masterful poems, defying category yet displaying a rigorous and deep knowledge of what poetry is about. We are invited on a journey full of surprises: The poet builds a ship in a dry desert wadi and waits for the rain. For long months, he sits at home incapacitated, seeing only the pigeons on his window sill. He travels to ancient China and dines with the great Chinese poets. He shares the painful breakup of his first family, his conflicts with living in Israel, his loves, his scathing social critiques — and he finds the love of his life. Through it all, he laughs at life and invites us to laugh with him. Using sound, syllable, and silence, he reinvents the contemporary existential dilemma. Welcome to Ed Codish’s rich tapestry of life.

Illustrated by Jacob Yona Horenstein