{"id":4572,"date":"2013-03-15T02:46:37","date_gmt":"2013-03-15T06:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/?p=4572"},"modified":"2020-05-07T13:32:02","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T17:32:02","slug":"words-from-the-borderline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/2013\/03\/15\/words-from-the-borderline\/","title":{"rendered":"Words from the Borderline; Israel\/Palestine\/ Czechoslovakia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Join us at Book Beat <\/strong>on Sunday, April 14<\/strong> from 3:00-4:00pm<\/strong> for an afternoon of compelling poetry with contemporary voices from the Israel\/ Palestine conflict. Before There is Nowhere to Stand <\/strong><\/em>i<\/a>s a new collection of poetry featuring voices from both sides of the Israel\/Palestine conflict with the intention of fostering a dialogue between the two countries respective communities and poets. Editor Edward Morin<\/strong> has brought together poets Joe Weintraub<\/strong> and George Adib Khoury<\/strong> who will be present to offer their perspectives. Sandra Novacek<\/strong>– widow of author Charles Novacek<\/strong>– will also appear to discuss the incredible tale of her late- husband’s survival amid the Nazi occupation of his homeland, related in the moving memoir Border Crossings<\/strong><\/em>: Coming of Age in the Czech Resistance<\/strong><\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

This event is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase at the event. Please call Book Beat (248) 968-1190<\/strong> for more information or to reserve copies of the books.<\/p>\n

Editors Joan Dobbie and Grace Beeler, both Jewish descendants of Holocaust survivors, responding to Israel\u2019s Operation Cast Lead, the Gaza massacre, issued a call for poetry. The ad, first posted in Poets & Writers<\/em> read, \u201cAre you Jewish or Palestinian? Of Palestinian or Jewish heritage? Please submit poetry for an anthology that strives for understanding in these troubled times. All points of view wanted in the belief that poetry can create understanding and understanding can dull hatred.\u201d<\/p>\n

“. . . The story of Israel \/ Palestine is ugly, tragic, human. But the book you hold in your hands exists to remind you that the story is not finished. . . .” <\/strong>\u2014Alicia Ostriker<\/span><\/p>\n

“<\/span>There is, perhaps, an imagination that can transform the violent world we live in. Poetry holds this possibility. If language itself may efface or serve to reproduce narratives that diminish or that normalize oppression, where is the difference? Might poetry open to a telling that is full; might it be a place of witness, for meeting of self and other? In it, may a lone reader find (what you may call) courage or solidarity, humanity; or recognize in the creative act proof of resilience? Or, shall we share Mahmoud Darwish\u2019s stance, that \u201cEvery beautiful poem is an act of resistance.\u201d\u009d<\/span><\/p>\n

You may find the poems gathered here to be invitation. Or you might understand this anthology as response to a call for poetic imagination.” -from the introduction by Christi Kramer<\/p>\n

Edward Morin<\/strong> co-edited Before There is Nowhere to Stand <\/em>(BTINTS<\/em>) <\/em><\/a>and has a poem and four co-translated poems in it.\u00a0 His poems have been published in Hudson Review, New Letters<\/em>, and Ploughshares<\/em>.\u00a0 Collections of his poems include Labor Day at Walden Pond<\/em> and The Dust of Our City<\/em>.\u00a0 His co-translations of Greek, Chinese, and Arabic poems have appeared in Iowa Review, Poetry Miscellany, Banipal, <\/em>and Connotation Press<\/em>.\u00a0 He edited and co-translated another\u00a0 anthology, The Red Azalea: Chinese Poetry since the Cultural Revolution<\/em> (U. of Hawaii Press).\u00a0 He taught English at Wayne State U. and College for Creative Studies.<\/p>\n

J. (Joe) Weintraub<\/strong>, who has a poem in BTINTS<\/em>, has published fiction, essays, poetry, and translations in Massachusetts Review, The New Criterion, Michigan Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner,<\/em> The MacGuffin, The Chicago Reader<\/em>, and The Seattle Weekly<\/em>.\u00a0 He is a network playwright at Chicago Dramatists and has had one-act plays produced by the Theatre-Studio in New York City; Summer Place Theatre in Naperville, IL; Theatre One in Middleboro, MA, American Blues Theatre, and Second City (Chicago).\u00a0 He has received Illinois Arts Council Awards for creative writing and the Barrington Arts Council\u2019s John P. McGrath Memorial Prize for Fiction.<\/p>\n

George Khoury<\/strong> has a co-translated poem in BTINTS<\/em>.\u00a0 A Nakba survivor from Birzeit, Palestine, he attended high schools in Jordan and Egypt, then emigrated to the U.S. and earned a degree in engineering from the U. of Detroit and an MBA from Central Michigan U.\u00a0 He has translated many technical manuals for heavy\u00a0 machinery and autos from English to classical Arabic.\u00a0 He edited the collected poems in Arabic of Diab Rabie, last of a group of five great Diaspora poets which included Gibran Kahlil Gibran, Michael Naimeh, and Elie Abu-Madi.\u00a0 The volume is entitled Shetharat El-Rabie<\/em> (The Birzeit Society, 2010).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Charles Novacek<\/strong> spent his youth defending his neighbors, his family, and his country, first from the Nazi atrocities of World War II and then from the Soviet oppression of the ensuing Cold War. Charles was eleven years old when his father and uncle recruited him into the Czech Resistance. Antonin Novacek not only taught his son to survive in the wild, but also prepared him for wartime: how to resist pain, hunger, and fear and to trust no one. His assignments included delivering messages to soldiers parachuting behind enemy lines and hiding them in caves he equipped for their shelter. As a young man, Charles was captured and jailed by the Communists and rescued by an underground resistance network. In too much danger to remain in Czechoslovakia, he staged a daring escape only to land in a miserable displaced persons camp. His will to live prevailed once again, and Charles eventually married and built a successful life in America.<\/p>\n

\u201cBorder Crossings<\/em><\/strong><\/a> is the well-told and dramatic story of a young man whose comfortable life is abruptly transformed by the savagery of World War II. Forced to rely on primal instincts and his familiarity with the rugged highlands of Moravia, Charles Novacek<\/strong> casts his lot first with the anti-Hitler Underground and then with the resistance to the Nazis\u2019 Communist successors. \u201cMy recollections pain me,\u201d he writes, \u201cstill, they have made me who I am.\u201d Novacek\u2019s experience as a Hungarian-speaking Czecho-Slovak patriot demonstrates the folly of petty nationalism and the resilience of human decency and love.\u201d –\u00a0Madeleine Albright, <\/strong>former U.S. Secretary of State<\/p>\n

“Border Crossings<\/em>helps fill the lack of personal accounts of resistance movements amidst a voluminous array of World War II literature. This compelling memoir, written through the eyes of young Charles, shows how circumstances required him to become a shrewd hero. In his opposition first toward Nazism and then Communism, Charles Novacek\u2019s personal story illustrates why people sacrifice themselves and their families for an ideal. Intimate, intense, fascinating!\u201d \u00a0– Christina Vella, coauthor of\u00a0The Hitler Kiss<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Join us at Book Beat on Sunday, April 14 from 3:00-4:00pm for an afternoon of compelling poetry with contemporary voices from the Israel\/ Palestine conflict. Before There is Nowhere to Stand is a new collection of poetry featuring voices from both sides of the Israel\/Palestine conflict with the intention of fostering a dialogue between the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}